Three-way win for Lady Tigers

The Lady Tigers growled their way to the top against Farson-Eden’s Lady Pronghorns Saturday, with their first three-way home-game win of the 2013 volleyball season.

The final scores from that varsity matchup were 25-15, 25-19 and 25-20, with the Tigers showing no signs of slowing down on their home turf. The JV Lady Tigers also played earlier that Saturday, but lost 25-21 and 25-22 against Farson-Eden’s JV team.

Coach Robin O’Leary said she was confident her girls could stay far enough ahead in the lead for all three matches, but that one can never be too sure of a guaranteed win in volleyball.

“We can never be far enough ahead for me to be sure we will win a game,” she said. “Volleyball is a game of momentum, and once it swings in someone’s favor it can be very hard to stop. Farson could have slipped ahead of us at any time. I give credit to all the girls for working as a team to make sure that didn’t happen.” 

O’Leary said she was impressed with her players, especially her seniors- middle-hitter Kaylyn Wessel and outside-hitter Jennifer Morgan- and two returning sophomores- outside-hitter Alyssa Barkhurst and middle-hitter Cassidy Little. She also gave credit to her other freshmen and sophomores, all of whom are new to the team this year.

“Our veteran players, who are our two seniors, bring experience to the game, my sophomores bring instinct and hustle and the freshman bring that desire to play,” she said. “We didn’t play our best, but it was enough to get the job done. We struggled with rotations, but we are seeing the girls gain a lot of control over where the ball goes. I was proud of the girls for playing consistently and not letting up in the third game.” 

O’Leary said also that Saturday’s wins were nice additions to their record, after winning the last three games out of five against Rock River Friday evening. She mentioned that the Rock River game was incredibly intense, but that her girls gave every ounce of heart and ability they had.

According to statistics, the scores from Rock River were 24-26, 17-25, 26-24, 28-26 and 15-9 for varsity (Encampment won the last three), and 25-23 and 25-14 for JV, with Encampment’s JV team winning both.

“Rock River has very hard servers and very hard hitters, and we really struggled with serve receive,” O’Leary said. “During the first two games we only had three passes make it up to the 10-foot line, and that makes it really difficult to set up our offense. Once we moved some people around on serve receive we were able to execute our offense and change the game to our favor, and we had some great blocks and amazing heads up plays. One of our JV, first-year players was able to go in and successfully serve a couple points for us at a key time, which put us into a fifth game, and it was one of the best games I have been a part of.”  

After two successful individual matches and several wins at the Saratoga tourney, O’Leary said the girls now have to face off against Little Snake River Valley, their tough-to-beat, long-time rival. The Lady Tigers will have to play them in an individual match Friday, and once again at the HEM Invitational Saturday.

“We have our conference Rivals on Friday against Baggs, and it will be a tough game,” O’Leary said. “It has been several years since we beat them, but I believe this team can do it if we continue to work as a team and cover where we need to. We will have to wait and see what happens. We will meet them again, along with Rock River, on Saturday in the Hanna tournament.” 

The Lady Tigers’ next game is 4 p.m. Friday at Little Snake River Valley High School in Baggs, followed by the HEM Invitational at Hanna Saturday. The starting time of the HEM Invitational is still to be announced.