By By SCOTT NOVAK / Vigilant/Argus
First-year coach Teri Tucker called it the "worst defense we've played all year" in referring to her squad's 17-21, 11-21 and 11-21 loss to visiting Edwardsburg Monday night.
Edwardsburg took Dowagiac totally out of sync against the Lady Eddies, who improved to 13-2-7 on the season with the victory.
Dowagiac and Edwardsburg used rally scoring, which the state of Michigan will switch to next season.
With points being scored on every serve, it was important for both teams to play good defense as well as perform well on offense.
Edwardsburg was able to do that, Dowagiac wasn't.
While the first game was fairly competitive, the final two games were not.
Edwardsburg continually pounded the ball at the Chieftains and dominated the net.
Dowagiac, which saw several players return to the line up after missing games due to the Miss Dowagiac pageant.
However, the Chieftains were without senior defensive specialist Jami Lutz, who is nursing a thumb injury.
When asked how much that hurt the team, Tucker responded by saying that Lutz is one of the top defensive players.
Statistically for the Chieftains Jenny Pilot had six kills.
Erica Knapp and Sarah Luthringer were among the top servers on the night for Dowagiac.
Defensively Brianne Reist played well according to Tucker.
Edwardsburg was led by Kate Habicht's eight kills, while Shelley Roberts and Jessica Rafalski had six and five kills respectively.
Shana Stoops also had five kills.
Rafalski also led the team in blocks and aces with two each. Sarah Lange led the team in assists.
Dowagiac won the junior varsity match, 15-9 and 15-6, while the Lady Eddies took the freshman match, 15-12 and 15-10.