GREENFIELD — The Miami Trace High School varsity volleyball team continued its defense of the 2022 Frontier Athletic Conference championship with a match Tuesday at McClain High School. McClain gave a spirited challenge before falling in four sets, 19-25, 28-26, 25-17 and 25-17.

The win kept the Panthers in first place in the conference.

Miami Trace is now 7-0 in the FAC, 12-2 overall.

McClain fell to 3-4 in the FAC (fourth place) and 9-7 overall.

“We got out really tough,” McClain head coach Taylor Alsop said. “That’s been harder for us to do this year. We played hard in the first set and ended up winning that one. I think after that it was kind of like we felt like we had accomplished something that we’d worked for,” Alsop said. “In the second set, we went back and forth, point for point. After that we kind of let ourselves down a little bit. I was hoping we would have played harder in our last two sets than we did tonight.”

Miami Trace hosted McClain on Aug. 31 and won that match in three sets: 25-17, 25-18, 25-22.

“(Tonight) we did a lot better with our serve-receive,” Alsop said. “The first time we played them, I don’t think (our players) expected (Miami Trace) to serve as tough as they did. We really haven’t seen a lot of teams this year who have six strong servers back-to-back-to-back. That was tough to get past. I think tonight we did really well with (serve-receive).”

Alsop was also pleased with her team’s aggressiveness on the attack.

“We were getting kills from the beginning,” Alsop said. “We weren’t letting up and giving them something easy. We made sure we made them work. Toward the end of the (match), we started getting back into that, just give them an easy ball to get it in. In the first couple of sets, I think we played really strong at the net and were aggressive.”

Alsop talked about the challenge presented by going against Miami Trace junior Addyson Butts, a force in the middle.

“It’s hard to stop her at the net,” Alsop said. “I think we did get some either good blocks on her or some digs.”

Addyson Butts set a new Miami Trace record with 23 kills in the match.

“McClain really played us tough,” Miami Trace head coach Doug Mace said. “There was a big part of the (match) where I thought they were actually outplaying us.”

McClain had previously notched three consecutive FAC victories over Washington, Hillsboro and Jackson heading into the match with Miami Trace.

“Coming to their place tonight, the way they’ve been playing, we’re fortunate to get the win,” Mace said. “We can’t expect every game… You’re not going to go out and play at the best of (your) ability… we had a big match with Chillicothe (last Thursday). We just didn’t have a good feel tonight when we were watching the kids on our side. I don’t take anything away from McClain. I thought that was one of the best matches they’ve had against us. We’re very fortunate to be in their home and to come out with the win.”

Chillicothe defeated Washington 3-1 on Thursday as the Cavs remain two games behind Miami Trace in second place with three conference matches remaining.

Miami Trace has Hillsboro (1-6 in the FAC) at home and Jackson (4-3) and Washington (1-6) on the road to conclude FAC play.

Chillicothe (5-2 in the FAC) is at McClain, then will host Hillsboro and Jackson to close FAC play for the season.

Miami Trace won the jayvee match with McClain two sets to none.

Chris Hoppes is the sports editor for the Record-Herald in Washington C.H.