Netting big cats and pronghorns

The Saratoga Lady Panthers suffered their first conference loss of the season against their counterparts from Cokeville (8-25, 18-25, 14-25), but were victorious against the North Park Lady Wildcats (25-14, 24-26, 25-19, 17-25, 15-10) on Tuesday, Sept. 11 and another conference rival, the Farson-Eden Lady Pronghorns (17-25, 25-16, 25-18, 25-22), on Saturday.

"I was proud of the girls' performance this past week," said Shayley Love, head coach of the Lady Panthers. "With Homecoming, sometimes it can be a long and tiring week, but they did a pretty good job of maintaining their composure. The North Park and Cokeville games we struggled getting momentum at times, but we were still able to pull off a win with North park."

Saratoga vs. North Park

On Tuesday, the Lady Panthers traveled to Walden, Colo. to take on the Lady Wildcats. They would depart North Park territory victorious 3-2 after the Lady Wildcats put up a fight through all five sets. Saratoga would win the first and third set while North Park won the second and fourth set, leading to a tie-breaker fifth round set that saw the Lady Panthers win by five points.

Junior Aubrey Berger lead the team in kills against the Lady Wildcats. With 39 attack attempts, Berger had 15 successful kills. Senior Tiffany Bauer followed with 9 kills out of 35 attempted attacks and junior Jenna Dew followed with 8 kills out of 29 attack attempts.

Berger and Bauer also led the Lady Panthers in serving aces with four and three, respectively. Saratoga kept their serving percentage high during the five-set match with 90.2 percent.

Sophomore Tasia Daley was the leading digger for the Lady Panthers with 31 digs against North Park. Berger followed with 24 and junior Taylor Bennett with 14.

Saratoga vs. Cokeville

On Saturday, Saratoga hosted the Cokeville Lady Panthers at the Panther Den. The hosting Lady Panthers would end up losing in three sets to the visiting team, with Cokeville finishing the first set 25-8, though Saratoga would come back in the next two sets and keep the score closer.

Berger, again, lead Saratoga in kills with seven out of 32 attack attempts. Bauer followed with four out of 22 and Dew with three out of 13 against the other Lady Panthers. Daley was, again, the top digger with 17 digs followed by Berger with 13 and Bauer with 8.

Saratoga managed to keep their serving success high against their conference rivals, with 87.8 successful serves throughout the match.

"Cokeville is a great team," Love said, "but we know what we need to do to compete at a different level with them next time."

Saratoga vs. Farson-Eden

"I was very happy with the way the girls played against Farson," said Love. "They adjusted their defense to take care of their big hitter and worked them on defense."

Following their 0-3 loss to Cokeville, the girls of Saratoga regrouped to take on the Lady Pronghorns Saturday afternoon. While the visiting Lady Panthers had been able to leave Saratoga victorious, Farson-Eden would not be so lucky as they would lose to the hosting Lady Panthers 3-1. The Lady Pronghorns would attempt to speed ahead in the first set with a nine-point lead, but Saratoga quickly recovered and won the next three sets.

Berger and Bauer, again, lead the Lady Panthers in kills with 11 out of 42 and 8 out of 24, respectively. Bennett would follow with 5 out of 16 as would junior Makiya Johnson with 5 out of 19.

When it came to serving aces, Berger had six successful aces against Farson-Eden followed by Bauer with two and Daley and Johnson with one each. Saratoga would have an 89.9 percent success rate of serves against the Lady Pronghorns throughout the match.

Daley lead in digs with 19 followed by Bennett with 12, Bauer with nine and Berger with seven.

Following this last week, Saratoga is now 2-1 for their conference and 8-1 for the season and the Lady Panthers have a busy week ahead of them. Saratoga will host the Hanna, Elk Mountain and Medicine Bow (HEM) Lady Miners (2-0, 5-4) at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 20, travel to Baggs to take on the Little Snake River Valley (LSRV) Lady Rattlers (1-1, 4-5) at 4 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 21, play host to Valley rivals the Encampment Lady Tigers (0-4, 2-6) at noon on Saturday, Sept. 22 and host the North Park Lady Wildcats at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 25.