Lady Dogies take third in bronze

The Lady Dogie volleyball team headed to Gillette for their second tournament of the season and found themselves up against some pretty serious competition. Once again, head coach Mickey Crabtree’s crew finished the weekend with a 3-3 record.
“We saw some good things, and then we had our not-so-good moments,” Crabtree admitted. “I’m really looking forward to coming out of our next tournament with better than a 3-3 record.”
The opening game of pool play on Friday was a good one for the ladies. St. Thomas More put a team on the court who made very few mistakes, but the Lady Dogies rose to the challenge and put together a pretty good match, taking the win in three sets, 23-25, 25-21 and 26-24.
In the third set, Newcastle was down 17-21 but dug down to fight back and take the win in extra points. 
“It was a good fight, and I was just pretty pleased with how they played in that game,” Crabtree reported. “St. Thomas More was a good team, so I was glad to see our girls rise to the challenge.”
Up next was Moorcroft, who moved up to 3A this season. The Lady Wolves also put a talented team on the court, and this time, the Lady Dogies did not rise to the challenge, losing in two straight sets, 19-25 and 19-25. 
“We didn’t take advantage of our height over them and we were just a little off,” Crabtree said, frowning. “We practiced run-throughs all week long and that’s how they beat us. We weren’t getting touches on the blocks and we just weren’t moving our feet. Moorcroft definitely had a strategy to get around our height, and played to the weaknesses on our team.”
The final game of the night was against Cheyenne Central where Newcastle played better in the 8 p.m. game, losing in two sets 24-26 and 18-25 against a pretty decent 4A team. 
“We played better, but it’s just so frustrating because the girls really have the potential to beat any team,” Crabtree said. “They worked hard, and it was a close match, and we’re right there for a lot of our games. We’re just still missing our consistency piece.” 
Crabtree acknowledged that consistency has improved from the first weekend to the second, however. 
“We need to utilize our middles more often,” she said. “Tiernan [Stanton] makes such a difference in the front row with her height and her volleyball savvy, and we need to capitalize more on her as the asset she is.”
The two losses put the Lady Dogies into the Bronze bracket on Saturday. Of the six 3A teams who competed in the tournament, three of them joined Newcastle in that bracket, while the other two ended up in the silver.
The first contest saw Newcastle matched up against the 3A Glenrock Lady Herders. The Lady Dogies made quick work of Glenrock, defeating them 25-18 and 25-10.
“The girls went in with a bit of chip on their shoulders after Friday, which was good,” Crabtree determined. “It was a good game to start the day off, and they used Tiernan a bit more, but there were still areas of the game that we could have done better for sure.”
Serving was an issue for the team all weekend, and Crabtree also noted that the team didn’t take advantage of free balls to earn points.
“I told the girls that we need to control the things we can control. We need to earn points and make fewer errors,” she began. “We do a plus/minus sheet, which I really like because we can see how many of the 25 points we give to the other team. We’re averaging 10-18 points that we are just giving to other teams. Our goal is to earn 18 and only give up around 8 through mistakes that we make, which we control.” 
In the semi-final match, Douglas was across the net. After losing to the Lady Bearcats in two last weekends, this time the match went to three sets. Newcastle lost the first 14-25, but rallied to battle it out in the last two sets winning the second 25-22 and then losing the third 23-25.
“Those two points are just so frustrating,” Crabtree said. “The girls came back in the last two, which was good to see. I really think we could have taken the third set, but they finished with a server who has a top-spin which is tough to figure out.”
The loss put the Lady Dogies into the third-place match against Sheridan whom they beat in two sets, 25-14 and 25-22.
“They were good and had a lot of height, but we played pretty well,” Crabtree analyzed. “However, we had way too many missed serves, which is definitely something we can control.”
“I think that Storee [Tupa] and Lizzie [Rushton] really stepped up and did well against Sheridan,” Crabtree continued. “It’s awesome to see everyone we put on the court contribute to our success.” 
The Lady Dogies head to Rawlins Friday and Saturday for their last pre-season tournament in which Crabtree is looking to see more improvement before getting into conference play where records really count.
“We are looking forward to seeing how we can fix some of our issues that we’ve seen these last two weekends,” she said. “We will see Douglas again and I definitely want to get a win over them! Also, we will see a couple of other teams we haven’t yet and hopefully we can break out of going 3-3 on the weekend and get some more wins under our belts.”