Hayden Garrett is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover McClintock High School.  

In a season like no other, Cactus Shadows beat McClintock 3-0 on Wednesday handing the Chargers their second straight loss of the season.

McClintock was just coming off a loss to Independence the night before. Independence also swept the Chargers 3-0 in that match. The Cactus Shadow Falcons had control over the Chargers Wednesday, in all three sets, winning 25-6, 25-12, and 25-11. Serve receive proved to be a challenge for the Chargers. The Falcons ended the match with 15 aces, while the Chargers only had three aces.

This season, there are a lot of changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Players were wearing masks during warmups and the game. There was a limited amount of family and fans let into the gym, which made for a much quieter match. For warmups, there was no shaking hands with the opposing team. In between every single play, the game ball was switched out with a different one and was cleaned. To end the night, each team had to simply wave goodbye from separate sides of the net.

Chargers captain Alyssa Drake said the biggest adjustment this year has been learning to play with masks. “Playing with masks was pretty challenging when we started because we aren’t used to it,” she said.

Team bonding is also very different this year because of social distancing guidelines from the school district. Drake acknowledged that they are planning something in the future, once statewide numbers go down.

McClintock just couldn’t seem to get the momentum going in each set. Every time the Chargers would take a lead, the Falcons would quickly get a kill or a block to end their run. Hitter Bella Reach led Cactus Shadows with nine kills, while Hollyn Franco contributed another four kills and three aces. Isabella Quinn led the team with eight assists.

After going down 0-2 to start the season, chargers captain Chloe Thomas was able to find a positive in the loss. “Our covering game got a lot better from the game we played last night,” she said. “We were definitely more confident tonight.” Thomas led the team with four assists and four digs.

The Falcons offense started off hot and was too much for McClintock to handle in the first set. However, the Chargers picked up their effort on defense in the last two sets. Chargers libero Paola Perez-Mendoza led the team with eight digs. Denise Dengi contributed another four digs, along with her three aces and one kill.

In the second set, McClintock was able to take the lead after a kill from Lucilia Wood got the momentum going for the Chargers. Dengi then was able to ace the Falcons a couple of times to get them out of sync. However, Cactus Shadows was able to recover off of some hitting and serving errors from McClintock. Wood ended the match with three kills.

McClintock started the season off with three games in three nights. Both Thomas and Drake agreed that it is important to keep the team spirits up, especially during a tough stretch of the schedule. “We just encourage everyone to keep their head up after a bad play. It is a new point every play and we aren’t going to let this one point affect us,” Drake said.

Assistant coach Chris Thomas noted there are multiple things the team needs to focus on this season in order to be successful. “You can always improve on everything when it comes to volleyball,” he said. “They played a really good team today. We definitely need to work on moving and communicating with each other on the court. Also coming together more as a cohesive unit.”

Coach Thomas also mentioned how new the team is to playing with each other this year. “We have a lot of young players on the team," he said. “We need to build up our young player’s confidence. They are new and just coming together.”