Samantha Maxwell is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover ALA Ironwood for AZPreps365

ALA Ironwood girls volleyball team took the loss on Thursday night at San Tan Foothills,  25-15, 25-16, 22-25, 15-25 and 12-15 in 3A South Central region action.

“It’s really rough,” ALA Ironwood coach Melissa Price said after the game when asked about how she thought the game went.

The Warriors fought hard tonight, with bad referee calls, a sick-ridden coaching staff and other things on top of it all, the game was rough.

Although the first and second sets flew by, and the Warriors gave the Sabercats a run for their money. They struggled to take off during the third set.

The Warriors (5-7 overall, 2-1) came back to win the third and fourth set and during the fourth. The Sabercats  (5-5, 1-1) took the fifth set in closely-battled decision making set.

“We did attack the ball offensively and pushed too many balls out-of-bounds,” San Tan coach Mike Zimmerman said.

The Warriors, who have lost three matches in a row, kept hitting ball after ball out of bounds causing the Sabercats to take the lead and never back down.

The team itself had a very off type of game, with communication errors, making bad decisions on where the ball was being placed, and not serving well, the energy was low.

Hitting the court just before the match everyone could already tell the girls were off but everything seemed fine to start, that was until the referee started making questionable calls.

The calls weren’t going in the Warriors’ favor, causing them to give up five points throughout the entirety of the game.

“It’s a momentum killer,” Price said. “You never know how the girls' mentality is going to be in that situation. It can either fire them up or put them in a mental game, that’s something they were struggling with tonight.”

Even with the bad calls and hard game there was one player in particular who not only played well tonight, but also kept up the energy and motivation for the team.

Julia Haahr is always trying to push the team and motivate them whether it is on the court the bench.

“I kept pushing in knowing that there were things that we did absolutely wonderful tonight," the junior said. "I focused on those to keep myself motivated and the team.”

During an official time out Haahr kept the team in a better mood by doing the “Hokey Pokey” on the court with her teammates. Even after the loss of the match, she was telling her teammates how good they did and how proud she was of them.

The ALA Ironwood Warriors didn’t end their losing streak and put a stop to it, and with the amount of pressure that Zimmerman said they have on them to make it to playoffs.

 There are still a lot more matches to be played this season and more chances to turn their season around to make it to the playoffs.

The Warriors play again on Monday at home against Valley Chrisitan High School in South Cental Region action.