Bear River bounces Wheatland for 35th consecutive PVL win

Any time a team has solidified itself at the top of the food chain, it knows it will receive everyone's best test. That's why it came as no surprise to Bear River girls volleyball coach Matt MacDonald that Wheatland jumped on the Bruins right away Tuesday night. Riding a 34-match winning streak in Pioneer Valley League play, the Bruins fell behind on the road and dropped their first set to the Pirates 25-23. Bear River adjusted to Wheatland's attack and won the next three sets 25-20, 25-15, 25-15 to secure a 3-1 victory and push the league winning streak to 35. "They came out with a lot of energy and they did that last year when we played here, too. They took a set from us and Wheatland was the only team to take a set from us in league last year," said MacDonald. "We just kind of had to settle into the match a little bit and I think once we started moving the ball around and made some defensive adjustments, it really opened up for us." Eden Cha, Grace McKeown and Dixie Drake led the defensive charge at the net with two blocks each as the Bruins tallied nine on the night. The Bruins handled Wheatland's attack, keeping the Pirates flustered and taking advantage of long rallies to score. "One of the things we just talked about is that we want to have that aggressive mentality and make our opponents play. We got to make them pass and we want our defense to be getting better as the match goes on," said MacDonald. "As we gather tendencies, we want to be playing better defense. I think we did that tonight." Bear River's attack was led by McKeown, who powered down a team-high 22 kills. Cha added 15 kills while Gabby Sams had nine. The Bruins totaled 55 kills. At the service line, Sams had six aces, Cha tallied five and McKeown three. Collectively, Bear River finished with 18 aces. Brooke Milligan had 43 assists. The Bruins (20-4, 4-0 PVL) swept Mira Loma 3-0 on Thursday and will host Colfax on Sept. 24 in a battle of unbeaten league rivals. MacDonald says it will be a grind to secure a fourth league title in five years, but he's confident the team is up to the challenge. Said MacDonald, "This is what we wanted. That's why we built the schedule that we did. We want to play good teams, and we know that our league is much improved this year. Each team in the PVL is better."