McKenna Kellams is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover McClintock High School for AZPreps365.com

McClintock came back by beating Metro Tech in three sets during a 5A Metro Region match on its home court after losing the previous day.

The Chargers have had a great season with an overall record of 13-4 and 6-1 in their region. On Friday they beat the Metro Tech Knights making the Knights overall record 4-13 and 3-5 in the region. The Chargers previously faced Arizona College Prep in a non-region match on Thursday and lost in three sets, ruining its winning streak of three. 

“I told my players to relax and play more for fun,” said head coach Jacob Laikona

With there only being a day between both matches Laikona found it difficult to have a conversation with his players to reflect on what went wrong during the game against ACP. But coming off of a loss Laikona had a plan to take return to their winnings ways.

The Chargers beat the Metro Tech Knights in a short three sets, 25-11, 25-13, 25-23. 

“Region games are always a little more exciting, just because you know how important they are,” assistant coach Chris Thomas said. 

The Chargers' ultimate goals are to win region and eventually state but they must work as a team to get through the roadblocks they come across along the way.

One main issue that the Chargers have been faced with this season is injuries of players. Having these injuries has caused players to shift in positions and learn a new position that some have never played before during their volleyball careers. 

“I like to set my girls up to be able to play every position in case something like injuries happen,” Laikona stated. 

Being a younger team and having only two seniors be a part of the team has allowed for players to shine as they work on their own player development. This has been the biggest goal for Laikona and Thomas this season. Both coaches have expressed their confidence in their team to be able to hold themselves up when it comes to more intense games such as region games.

“I told them (the team) to focus on one thing at a time, let's first focus on getting better as a team and then we can focus on taking care of the region,” Laikona expressed what the win against the Knights meant for him and the Chargers. 

With regions being at the end of the season Laikona sees it as best to take everything as it comes, he wishes to not get his girls to side tracked from their current season that they are working on, especially for injuries as that can be a major setback when they begin playing in higher stake games. 

“Volleyball shows you like life that you are gonna have struggles and how do you deal with those struggles and how do you move forward,” Metro Tech's coach Bryan Heckler said. 

Over the past few years Heckler has seen some great matches between the Knights and the Chargers and he was feeling good going into this game against the Chargers despite missing a few players and also needing to adjust and move players around due to absences. 

The Knights currently have a losing streak of four, Heckler plans to change that by emphasizing communication, controlling the ball when under pressure and trying players out in different positions similar to the Chargers strategy. 

The Chargers next game is on Monday facing the Fairfax Stampede in an away region match at 7 p.m. the Stampede is 4-12 currently and sixth in its region.