ABOVE: Fairmont’s Jadyn Montgomery taps the ball over the net during set one of Tuesday night’s contest against Jackson County Central at Fairmont High School.

FAIRMONT – The biggest takeaway head coach Stacy Garbers had following her Fairmont High School volleyball team’s loss to Jackson County Central on Tuesday night was the inability to sustain momentum throughout the match.

Despite the Huskies winning the match 19-25, 25-20, 25-22, 25-10, the score didn’t tell the whole story.

Multiple times throughout the night, Fairmont had its opponent on the ropes, executing in all levels of the game to swing it in their favor. But ultimately, many of these moments fell short.

Jadyn Montgomery led all Cardinals with 14 kills, with Brylee Miller not too far behind with eight. Miller was the team leader with 20 digs. Leslie Zarling had 32 set assists. Miller, Zarling, and Montgomery all had two blocks each.

“I am proud of how my girls never give up,” Garbers said. “We ask them to fight till the end and they do. I am proud of that.”

Fairmont came out of the gate with an aggressive attitude in their style of play, hunting hard hits and forcing JCC to make some uncharacteristic mistakes. A 4-point Cardinal surge placed the team ahead of the Huskies 13-7, using kills from Miller, Montgomery, and Lilly Meyers to take the early cushion.

The rest of the set was a back-and-forth affair. Neither side let the other gain too big of a lead, keeping the set within three to five points and keeping it close. The closest JCC got to a comeback was 16-14 after Madelyn Rowe rang up an ace to bring her team within 2.

With the Cardinals leading 22-19, it was Montgomery who was able to power to a set victory. Montgomery used a touch pass over the net that landed perfectly between the Huskies defense, giving Fairmont the early match lead.

“We came out with good intensity that first game,” Garbers said. “We took a nice first win.”

The script changed immediately in Set 2. Instead of letting the game come to them, JCC started things off taking advantage of a handful of Fairmont out-of-bounds hits to stretch the advantage to 7-1.

A string of spikes from Montgomery and Miller however brought the Cardinals back to life, putting the team back in the set down 7-5.

Throughout the set, Fairmont kept inching closer and closer, ultimately taking a 19-18 lead following a 5-point swing that ended with kills from Miller and Makayla Lowry.

But a spike from Zoey Hall evened things up for the Huskies, who used this momentum to go on a 6-point run to end the set. With two quick aces from Madisyn Wachal finishing things off for JCC, the match was tied with momentum swinging back towards the Huskies.

JCC looked like they were in command for yet another win in the midst of Set 3, with a 3-point run consisting of a kill from Hall and a block from Wachal extending the lead to 20-11. However, a timeout from Garbers was just the spark her team needed.

Down 22-14, Fairmont started to string together some points to look like the team that took set one earlier in the night. Kills from Lowry and Montgomery followed by an ace from Miller brought the Cardinals within 3, 22-19.

Two out of bounds hits from JCC chipped into the lead even further, bringing the game to 23-22 with the ball in Fairmont’s hands.

A kill from JCC’s Madelyn Rowe gave the serve back to the Huskies with game point on their side. Rowe finished things off after securing a two-handed block on a Fairmont spike to close the door on any hopes of a comeback.

“I am very happy with the way they fight and push back, but we just have to find a way to finish to the end,” Garbers said.

Set 3 saw JCC continue to play with momentum, clicking on all aspects of the game to ultimately pull away from Fairmont. With the Huskies up 9-5, the team rattled off 11 consecutive points to put an early ending on the set. While this run came from a handful of kills from Rowe, it was Wachal’s seven aces that ultimately fueled the rally.

JCC ended things off with three consecutive spikes from Rowe, Hall, and Paylin Sether to win the final set 25-10.

Fairmont (4-15) will look to this Thursday for its next contest at Tri-City United. This contest will begin at approximately 7:30 p.m.