Tatiana Martinez is an ASU Cronkite Student of Journalism student assigned to cover Greenway for AZPreps365.com

With just three games left in the regular season, the Greenway Demons added a win Monday against Shadow Mountain. 

The Demons secured a strong 3-0 victory over Shadow Mountain, demonstrating their growth as the regular season wraps up. Fueled by effective serves and aggressive hitting from Tatum Peterson and Haidyn Nelson, Greenway maintained momentum and finished the game strong. Showcasing their resilience and improvement as they approach the playoffs.

Greenway started off hot in the first set with a good lead in the score. What propelled the team to stay ahead of Shadow Mountain were their strong serves, that were pushed deep into the back row, and aggressive hitting.

This is something that the team struggled with at the beginning of the season. In this game though they got to showcase their improvement by translating drills from practice into the game. 

The score of the first set was 25-15 Greenway, as setters Tatum Peterson, and Haidyn Nelson scored the most points for their team. Nelson's strong serves combined with aggressive and consistent attacks from Tatum is what caused trouble for Shadow Mountain. 

In this game, Greenway was missing one of their key players, libero Eden Castro. The team needed to learn how to adjust to that as she is a leader and a top passer on the team. 

Greenway found ways to adjust as their middle blocker would step into the role of passing. Head Coach, Sarah Peterson, explained that she could not have been more proud of the girls who stepped up in times like this. 

Moving into the second set, Nelson continued to attack Shadow Mountain's back row and had 7 kills this set. The set ended in a score of 26-24. 

This was a close set as Shadow Mountain caused some communication errors in the back row for Greenway. There were points earned by Shadow Mountain on serve receive issues, and bad passing. 

As the set continued, Greenway was able to turn this around as they were aggressive at the net making sure to fix communication errors.   

Peterson explained that in a game of volleyball mistakes are going to be made, but you have to get over it. 

“We did a really good job tonight of just relaxing, playing as a team, and having fun,” Peterson said. 

In the third set, Greenway faced a challenging start, falling behind 0-2 due to missed swings. 

As the set continued, Haidyn delivered two aces, narrowing the gap to 12-18. Despite good attacks from Shadow Mountain, Greenway with smart plays such as dumps, and short balls making it 18-20. After some back-and-forth, the Demons finished strong with an ace from Tatum, winning the set 25-21 and clinching the match.

“Honestly this is one of our best games that we played, we won in 3, and we stayed up there. We did struggle with communication and it happens but we need to know that we can get over that and always improve it,”  Nelson said. 

As the team approaches their final games of the season against Thunderbird and Paradise Honors, it’s essential for them to remain disciplined while having fun and focusing on improving their communication.