By Justin Fedich | The Selma Times-Journal

ORRVILLE — After two straight wins against Southside and Ellwood Christian, the Keith Bears struggled to keep their momentum rolling Thursday.

Keith’s errors were too much to overcome as the Bears (6-5) fell in a home match to the Millry Wildcats (7-5) 25-18, 25-22, 25-21 Thursday. Keith head coach Towanna Flennory said she thinks her team is better than the way it played against Millry.

“We don’t play up to our standards. We don’t play up to our capabilities when we go into a match. We tend to lower our level of play to who we’re playing,” Flennory said.

The Bears got off to a slow start in the first set, but fought back to make it close the rest of the way. After trailing 5-0, Llulissa Torres scored the first point for Keith with a kill.

Keith was down 20-9 when it made a 9-3 run to try to get back into the set. Alyshia Boone scored a kill to narrow the score to 20-11 and had another kill to lower the deficit to 23-17.

Senterrica Ellis served a point to make it 23-18, but Keith ultimately fell 25-18.

The Bears got off to a quicker start in the second set. After trailing by three through the early part of the second set, Boone tipped a ball over the net to narrow the deficit to one at 16-15. Boone’s kill two points later gave Keith a 17-16 lead.

“She’s doing well,” Flennory said of Boone. “She’s been battling some knee issues, but she’s really just getting back in the swing of things. She’s a very big impact player on our team.”

The Wildcats came back to take the lead, but serving from Keith’s Calandria Carter tied the game back up at 22-22. The Bears lost the final points to go down two sets.

Carter gave Keith an early 2-1 lead in the third set. Keith was down 8-6 until Boone scored on back-to-back kills and tied the set at 8-8. Kendra Jones added a kill a few points later to give Keith an 11-9 lead.

“She was doing a great job of attacking as well,” Flennory said of Jones. “I think we just got away from attacking and started rushing. We started trying to play too rapidly.”

Jones served an ace to give Keith its largest lead of the match at 15-11. The Bears lost the lead at 18-17, but Jones tied the set at 21-21 with a block. The Bears were unable to finish the set once again, however, and fell 25-21.

“I think we beat ourselves. I think we made too many unforced errors,” Flennory said. “I think we made too many service errors. We didn’t execute our gameplan completely.”

Keith’s next match is at Linden Monday at 5 p.m.