Two teams in the middle of the Region 7 standings battled in a 5-set thriller Tuesday night, with Maple Mountain finding a way to get past Spanish Fork 25-23, 23-25, 21-25, 25-18 and 15-7.
After falling behind 2 sets to 1, Maple Mountain head coach Aspen Smith knew that if her team was to gain any sort of momentum and have a chance at coming back to win, it needed to quickly change its mindset and become more aggressive.
“One thing I love about this team is they’re all very coachable and they all love to win,” Smith said. “Their mindset is like that. If we have an upset or if we’re not doing our best, they know they need to switch their mindset and then just keep going, which is one thing that they do great on.”
Smith went on to praise the way her players came together and lifted each other up when things weren’t going their way.
“They constantly build each other up,” she said. “If somebody’s not doing well, they can hurry and help each other out and then just keep pushing forward, which that’s what we needed when we were losing that second and third set.”
After taking the fourth set to tie things up and push the match to a decisive fifth set, the Golden Eagles were able to find another level and overpower the Dons. Maple Mountain started the fifth set on a 10-2 run, quickly gaining some breathing room while putting all of the pressure on Spanish Fork.
“My message to them was, ‘You know, at this point, if we want to get a win here, we got to work our tails off,” Smith said. “You got to leave everything on the floor here, and you got to work together as a team.’
“I was like, ‘You guys need to make sure you’re talking in the back row. You’re talking in the front row, and also show that you want this.’ I think once they changed their mindset there and gave that max effort, it really changed the dynamic of our team.”
This type of momentum building and scrappy team win could not have come at a better time for Maple Mountain, which plays Region 7 leader Pleasant Grove next. Smith hopes this win gives her team the momentum and motivation it needs to defeat a top squad.
“I told them, ‘This is the momentum we need to play Pleasant Grove.’ They are a team that we’ve been wanting to beat since last year,” Smith said.
“They have a lot of really great players, and so I hope that we keep this momentum moving forward, because we have the talent. We just gotta make sure we have that unity as a team.”