Lady Cats host Worland Thursday

by Karissa Nichols

The Lady Cats spent an abundance of time on the court in week 4 of the season with a home match on Thursday against the Lovell Lady Bulldogs, Friday they traveled to Powell and met a hard hitting Powell team, and then to Big Horn on Saturday to take on the #1 ranked 2A Lady Rams.  

The Lady Cats fell to the Lovell Lady Bulldogs in four games at home with scores of 17-25, 25-22, 23-25, 22-25..  Coach Shannon Hill stated “I was proud of how they played pretty consistently in games 2 and 3.  We started out slow in game 4,  after a timeout was called we were down 10-16 and after that, they decided they weren’t quite done competing.” Coach Hill said “We were in one of our strongest rotations with Hanna serving, Ina, Kali and Brooklynn in the front row which left Dazlynn and Hanna to play defense. We ended up fighting back and were up 18-16 but unfortunately with some back and forth and small errors on our part, we ended up dropping the match by just 3 points.”  

Highlights for the Lovell game include Ina King with 13 kills, Hanna Hill with 8, and Brooklynn Williams and Kali Simeral each contributing 5 and Tensie Verhasselt with 2.  Kali also added two blocks to the match.  Hanna had 28 digs and Dazlynn Hunt added 15 to help keep the ball alive for the Lady Cats.  Hanna contributed 5 aces with Lexi Garrison leading the team with assists.

Coach Hill stated that ‘both Powell and Big Horn had strong outside hitters and in Powell we psyched ourselves out and played pretty timid.  We started to compete better in games 2 and 3 but Powell is a tough team.”

The Lady Cats lost to Powell in 3 games with scores of 14-25, 13-25, 14-25. Powell’s front row dominated the game and the Lady Cats couldn’t answer back with their own kills to battle against the Powell Panthers.  The Sportsmanship award was awarded to Brooklynn Williams by Powell High School.  

Stats for the Powell game included 5 kills by Ina, with Brooklynn adding 2 and setter Lexi adding one of her own. Brooklynn had 3 ace serves with Hanna and Jayssie Owsley each adding one.  The three blocks of the game came from Kali. The Lady Cats were playing a lot of defense against the hard hitting Powell team with digs coming from Dazlynn with 9, 7 from Ina, 3 a piece from Lexi, Hanna and Brooklynn with Jayssie adding one dig to the game.  

Saturday took the Lady Cats to Big Horn to take on a tough Lady Rams team.  Coach Hill stated that “we had a slow start and didn’t start competing until half way through the second game.  The third game was a fun one to watch and the girls competed hard versus a number 1 ranked 2A team, dropping the third just 25-23.”

Scores of the match against Big Horn were 13-25, 17-25, 23-25.  Highlights of the match against Big Horn include 9 kills by Ina, 5 by Hanna Hill with Kali and Brooklynn each contributing 1 kill a piece. Lexi led the team with 12 assists for the match.  Hanna  and Tensie had 2 Ace serves that were not returnable by the opponent.  Hanna, Kali and Tensie all had one block a piece.  Dazlynn and Hanna led the team on the defensive end with 9 digs by Hanna and 10 by Dazlynn.  

Coach Hill said, “all in all it was a tough weekend with tough competition, but we learned a lot about ourselves as individual players and a team and will focus on defense this next week as we head into our conference match vs. Worland on Thursday. Our girls are on the brink of something great and when it clicks, they will be a force to be reckoned with!”

The Junior Varsity Lady Cats were also busy in week 4 traveling with the varsity team to Powell and Big Horn and a home game on Thursday against Lovell.  The JV team lost in 2 games to Lovell posting scores of 19-25 and 9-25. In Powell they took them to 3 games but just couldn’t get the win.  Scores of the games were a hard fought 26-24 game 1, 23-25 and 18-25.  In the end they just couldn’t pull out the win over the Lady Panthers. On Saturday against Big Horn the Lady Cats started the match strong posting a win with a score of 25-19,  and then lost the next two games with scores of 15-25 and 21-25.  Coach Larry Alwin stated that “We have the tools, we are working to get them in the right place in the toolbox.” He mentioned “we are on an uphill trajectory, through patience, discipline in practice and energy 110% of the time, we will steamroll coming opponents.  The JV team is solving an early season setback.” Coach Alwin said he “is eager to get back our winning record.”

The Lady Cats Freshman team competed against Lovell on Thursday and Powell on Friday where they fell short and lost both matches in 2 games. Coach Erika Schultz stated “it’s become very clear that this group of freshmen are super adaptable.  Last week we changed our rotation and our offense from a 5-1 to a 6-2, and all the girls have adjusted to these new roles well.”  She stated that “last week in Buffalo, they stepped up their communication and played through the rotation change wonderfully. This week, they did well with their serving and passing which is really helping them in getting their offense running.”

The 15-9 varsity Lady Cats will try to improve on their record with a conference game against Worland at home with games starting at 4 p.m. for freshman, 5 for the junior varsity and a 6 p.m. start time for the varsity Lady Cats.  They will then hop on a bus and head to Wind River on Saturday with games at 12/1/2 p.m.