Woolsey brothers making big contributions to Metro East Lutheran boys volleyball

Apr 14, 2017 8:00 AM Apr 13, 2017 11:47 AM

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EDWARDSVILLE – Metro East Lutheran's boys volleyballers had to clean up a few things Monday evening even though the Knights took the first game of their home match against Waterloo Gibault.

“He definitely said clean up the play,” said senior middle hitter Braden Woolsey, referring to Knight coach Jason Batty. “We were playing pretty sloppy, letting a lot of balls drop that we shouldn't; a lot of them were falling between us. Our guys started making a lot more hustle plays and get them up.”

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The cleaned-up play, which included some big contributions from Woolsey and his sophomore libreo brother Brent, helped the Knights to a 25-23, 25-15 win over the Hawks.

MEL went into Monday's match having won a match at the Vianney Tournament in St. Louis County the previous weekend; Monday's win was MEL's first back-to-back wins of the season. “It's huge,” Braden Woolsey said, “because we had a bit of a run where we were getting down on ourselves and we really didn't know what to do. These past two wins have shown we can play with some teams, and I think we can only go up from here.”

Braden Woolsey contributed 10 blocks, three of them solo, in the win, to go with five kills, while Brent Woolsey contributed 10 digs in the win.

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The Knights have a couple of players who are first-timers to the sport; Braden Woolsey realizes there is a learning curve with those players. “They're slowly adapting,” he said of the newcomers, “like a couple of guy haven't played volleyball ever and we've only had a single-digit number of practices, so they're still getting in the groove. They're definitely going to be huge for us at the end of the season.”

“We're just trying to get the ball up,” Brent Woolsey said of the Knights' play from a defensive point of view. “Our passing isn't great, we know that; we need to work on it in practice. We just try to get through serve receive, and on tips, we've got guys who have never played on the back row before.

“We're trying to get the ball up, trying to figure out how to cover the tips. I'm feeling a lot more comfortable than last year; I was kind of scared, I'd never played at that level before. I've gotten a lot more comfortable as the games have gone on.”

Brent Woolsey does feel the Knights are making progress. “Saturday (at the Vianney Tournament), we had a rough time, but this was good. We knew Gibault wasn't going to be the toughest game, but we knew we still had to play hard and keep our heads in the game and do whatever we could.”

MEL returns to action Saturday with the Rockwood Summit Tournament in St. Louis County.