EDWARDSVILLE – Edwardsville's boys volleyball team made short work of Granite City in a Tuesday evening Southwestern Conference match at Lucco-Jakcson Gym, the Tigers scoring a 25-12, 25-8 win over the Warriors to go to 6-3 overall, 2-1 in the SWC; the Warriors fell to 3-6 overall, 0-2 in the league.

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“We try to tell the boys, no matter if it's practice or a match, we're trying to play a certain way,” said Tiger coach Andy Bersett. “Granite will make plays – they have against us; the first set was close in the beginning and the second set was close in the beginning. We were able to go on a run, but you know, we limit our errors and good things will happen no matter what team's on the other side.

“I thought we made a few service errors in the first set, a few attacking errors; I thought we cleaned it up in the second set, and that's why we were able to go on that run.”

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The Tigers were able to overcome the errors and take the win. “(Warrior coach)Justin's (Warren) got the kids playing well over there,” Bersett said. “It comes down to 'let's worry about our side, let's do what we can the best, make sure we're working hard.' That's the big thing.

“Teaching high school and coaching high school kids – they tend to be lackadaisical at times, so our goal is to make sure we stay focused until the end of the match.”

The Tigers shook off Granite in the opening game as the Warriors stayed close to Edwardsville, coming as close as 3-1 and 6-4 before EHS got on a run and took the lead to 11-6 before extending it to 17-9; the Tigers then got on a big run to put the lead to 21-11 before closing out the Warriors in the first game. GCHS then managed to take an early lead in Game 2 on the Tigers, leading 2-1 and 3-2 in the early stages before the Tigers got hot, going on a run that made it 11-5 before taking their lead to 20-6 at one point before getting to 24-6; the Warriors held off the Tigers a couple of times before EHS closed out the match.

Josh Wittenburg and Cal Werths had 10 points each for the Tigers, with Drew Berthlett adding seven kills and Werths and Wittenburg five kills each; Lucas Verdun had 22 assists on the night and Bob Dresner added nine digs.

Next up for EHS is a 5:30 p.m. Thursday home match against CBC, one of the top schools in the St. Louis area, before taking on East St. Louis in a 4:30 p.m. April 10 varsity-only match at Liberty Middle School's Gym; the Warriors next meet up with the Flyers at 5:30 p.m. Thursday in a league match before visiting Belleville West at 5:30 p.m. April 10.

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