Published: September 10, 2006 02:14 am         

Tigers continue to improve

WESTVILLE — Winning the first-place plaque was a nice accomplishment for the Westville Tigers, but it wasn’t their main goal on Saturday.

Instead, the Tigers were concentrating on getting themselves better during the Westville Invitational.

“We have lofty goals for this season and we’re not at the level right now to achieve them,’’ Westville senior setter Kelsey Russell said. “We needed these four matches today to work on a number of things that need improvement.’’

Communication and focus were the two areas the Tigers were concentrating on trying to improve.

“Those are things that you can only improve with experience,’’ Westville coach Allen Greenlee said. “The more that this group plays together, the better they are going to get.

“We changed some things up in our offense, to get a few longer rallies today. We tend to lose our focus in those situations, and I wanted us to work on that aspect of the game.’’

Admittedly, things didn’t start off well for the Tigers (8-0). Westville dropped the opening game of the tournament to Urbana University High but it rallied to win the last two games of that match.

Six more game victories, including a 25-18, 25-14 win over Salt Fork capped Westville’s run to the title.

“That was not a good start to the day,’’ Russell said. “We got ourselves together and we played fairly well, but we know we still have room for improvement.’’

Salt Fork, which went 2-2 in the tournament to finish third behind Heritage and Westville, was another team just looking for the experience of playing four matches in one day.

“We’ve got a lot of talent, but it’s young,’’ said Salt Fork coach Herb Wilkins, who has five sophomores in his rotation. “At times, we play like a team with a lot of talent and other times, we play like a team that is very young.’’

The Storm (5-6) bounced back after an opening-round loss to Heritage to beat Georgetown-Ridge Farm and Urbana University High in three games to set up the final match with Westville.

“As I told these girls, I didn’t want them watching the scoreboard,’’ Wilkins said. “If we are concerned with the score, than we are playing not to lose, rather than playing to win.

“I know a lot of coaches say that, but I really want these girls to understand that we just need to keep on working at getting better.’’

Junior Betsy Sudlow led Salt Fork with 23 kills on the day, while sophomores Mallory Weber and Mallory Meade added 11 and 10 respectively.

Georgetown-Ridge Farm went 0-4 in the tournament but the Buffaloes (1-6) used Saturday’s matches as a practice.

“We had four matches and we tried four different things,’’ Georgetown-Ridge Farm coach Heather Siefert said. “In that last match, we finally found something and it was our best match of the season.’’

Kaci Lierman led the Buffaloes with 24 kills on the day, while Danielle Dill had 56 digs and Rachel Everingham added 30 assists.