Looking to grow

The Encampment Lady Tigers suffered their first home court defeat of the season after hosting the Saratoga Lady Panthers on Thursday. While the mostly young team brought the score close several times, and even looked like they might have overcome their Valley rivals, the evening ended 0-3 as Saratoga departed Tiger Nation victorious. Robin Brown, head coach of the Lady Tigers, wasn't about to be discouraged, however.

"We have so much room to grow, we're such a young team, that this is just our baseline," said Brown. "So if we can come out and get as close as we did now, we'll just grow phenomenally throughout the year."

This year the Lady Tigers is composed primarily of underclassmen with only two seniors, Noelle Peterson and Lauren Buford. This situation comes after the loss of two All-State Volleyball players: Paige Powell, who moved from the Valley over the summer, and Hailey Barkhurst, who graduated in May. Peterson and Buford did not shy away from the role of leadership on the team, however, as they both had nine kills against Saratoga.

"Toward the end we really started playing the net," Brown said. "Lauren (Buford) brought on those blocks towards the end and really started hitting the ball. Noelle (Peterson) has a powerful, powerful hit when she gets on and we can get the pass to our setter to set her up."

Along with Buford and Peterson, sophomore Lindsey Farver is finding her place on the team having had four kills against Saratoga. Farver also did well in serving with 100 percent of successful serves and three aces-one during each set-out of 15 serves against the Lady Panthers.

"We're a really young team and we did have a couple girls that this was their first game out this season," said Brown, "so we did have a lot of nerves coming into it. The times that we did bring it close ... it was when we got our nerves in check and just kind of played our game."

When the Lady Tigers did play their game, it lead to extended rallies that saw the Encampment girls communicating with each other well and working on getting their shots set up against Saratoga.

"We have a tempo of the game that we play best in and when we were coming back, that's when get got into that and we started controlling that tempo and controlling the game a little bit," Brown said.

Despite the Lady Panthers winning three consecutive sets (14-25, 21-25, 17-25), Brown is confident that things are looking up for Encampment.

"I think we have good things coming."

The Lady Tigers have two games to look forward to this weekend. First, at 4 p.m. on Sept. 7, Encampment will travel to Hanna, Elk Mountain and Medicine Bow High School to take on the Lady Miners. Then, at noon, on Sept. 8 the Lady Tigers will host the Little Snake River Valley Lady Rattlers in Tiger Nation.