By Daniel Evans
The Selma Times-Journal

With volleyball season right around the corner and games starting next week for many teams, Morgan Academy and Meadowview Christian played a scrimmage contest Tuesday night in the Senators’ gym.

The junior varsity teams played first, followed by a game between the two schools varsity squads.

Morgan won both the junior varsity and varsity matches, although on-court experience and not the final result was really the point of the scrimmage.

Senators head coach Jennifer Moore has a team lacking in experience, but not necessarily young. Moore has a lot of seniors on her team that have not played a lot on varsity, but she is really happy with how her team performed Tuesday.

“They are coming along really well. I am really impressed with how they are playing,” Moore said. “They are coming on, they are playing together and they are playing well.”

At times, both teams showed their defensive skills by diving to the floor and rushing to tough balls,successfully hitting them across the net to keep rallies ongoing.

“I am very pleased with the defense and the way they are working together,” Moore said. “That’s the main thing right now, the teamwork.”

Both coaches felt like the scrimmage game allowed them to see how their teams were reacting to the ball.

“I just want to see how my girls reacted in a live game. In a practice game, I wasn’t really interested in whether they were up or down,” Meadowview head coach Tim Burton said. “I just wanted to see how the ball went.”

One thing that impressed Burton was his team’s ability to control the ball.

“I think it went wonderful,” Burton said. “We had some real good ball control that I was just amazed at. I feel real good about their control.”

Burton said he is looking forward to the season because the success some of his players had when they were on junior varsity.

“I’m really looking forward to the season because some of these girls stepped up from junior varsity that won the state two years ago and they were runners up last year,” Burton said. “They are all stepping up to varsity now. I am really looking forward to the year.”

Both teams found things to build on moving into the season. For instance, Moore wants her team to develop a killer instinct.

“That seems to be a weakness of ours, that we always want to dig that hole at the beginning and we have to climb back out of it. And also, we seem to lack the ability to finish,” Moore said. “They got within four points right there at the end and we had them by a pretty good gap.”

Morgan’s first game is Aug. 15 at Kingwood Christian, where the Senators will participate in a quad match featuring four schools.  The Senators first home game is Aug. 19 against Sumter Academy. Meadowview’s first game is at home Aug. 15 against Sumter Academy.