Rocking Rock River

The Saratoga Lady Panthers, the current No. 2 team in 1A Southwest, had a pretty easy weekend as the only game for the varsity was against the No. 2 team in 1A Southeast, the Rock River Lady Longhorns (25-14, 25-21, 22-25, 25-15) who they hosted Friday evening. The last time the two teams met was when Rock River hosted the Lady Panthers. Saratoga returned home from that match with a 3-2 victory.

This time, with the Lady Panthers hosting Rock River, the ladies of Saratoga would shorten the match by one set as they scored yet another win in what has proven to be a successful season so far.

"We had a great game offensively, something we've been working on," said Shayley Love, head coach of the Saratoga Lady Panthers. "Our defense wasn't as sharp, but I was still proud of how the girls pulled through to finish the match."

Junior Aubrey Berger would lead Saratoga in attacks, going up to the net 51 times and having 14 successful kills against Rock River. Fellow junior Makiya Johnson followed with 12 kills out of 26 attacks and senior Tiffany Bauer had nine kills out of 29 attacks.

Libero Tasia Daley was on point with her serves with five aces out of 16 total serves. Following the sophomore player was Berger, who had three aces out of 19 total serves and Johnson with three aces out of 15 total serves.

"As you can see by our stats," Love said, "we had a great hitting game which comes from good passes, setting and our hitters utilizing every chance they got to put the ball away."

Daley also lead in digging, with 46 digs against the Lady Longhorns and only six digging errors. Following Daley was, again, Berger with 18 digs and junior Taylor Bennett with 13 digs. Bennett lead the team in blocks with a total of four blocks throughout the match, three of them solo and one assisted.

With their second win against Rock River, the Lady Panthers are still 4-1 for conference, but are 12-1 for the season-the one loss being against the Cokeville Lady Panthers during homecoming weekend.

"I'm very proud of each one of these girls and what they are contributing to the team," said Love.

Up next for Saratoga is the 1A tournament in Buffalo on Oct. 5 and 6 where they will start the 1A Jamboree by taking on the St. Stephen's Lady Eagles (2-3, 5-9). After the tournament, the Lady Panthers will be hosted by Hanna, Elk Mountain and Medicine Bow (HEM) Lady Miners (8-8) at 5 p.m. on Tuesday Oct. 9.

Saratoga will then be hosted by the Farson-Eden Lady Pronghorns (2-2, 8-4) at 11 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 12 and then by the Cokeville Lady Panthers (4-0, 17-8) at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 13.