First tourney ends on high note

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
The Lady Dogies christened their road-heavy schedule last weekend as they faced off against some tough competition at the Douglas tournament on Friday and Saturday. Though things didn’t start the way the netters had hoped, by the end of day two, head coach Jenny Willard’s squad was getting into the swing of things.
“The first day, we saw some good competition against Douglas, Jackson and Glenrock,” Willard declared. “We lost all three of those games but we showed some pretty good potential against Douglas and Jackson, and gave them a run for their money in the second set of each.”
Over the weekend the team also played with some injuries which added adversity to an already challenging schedule. Senior setter Madi Pearson jammed her thumb in the first match against Douglas, Christina Hadlock tweaked her shoulder so her swings were limited, and Claire Beastrom’s knees were bothering her so her time was limited as well.
The Lady Dogies played well on day two, with the exception of the first contest of the day where they lost against Southeast. However, they turned things around against Hot Springs and Big Horn winning both to end the tournament.
Serving was a struggle last year for the Lady Dogies, however that was not an issue over the weekend.
“Serving has been a big focus for us, knowing that we didn’t do so well in that area of the game last season,” Willard began. “I was very pleased to see a big improvement in the stats from the line this weekend.”
Willard also put in a new defense that her squad only had a couple of days to work on prior to the tournament. 
“Over the course of the weekend I think our new defense did come into play in a positive way for us,” she began. “We’re making adjustments to have Johnna [Dawson, the team’s libero] in a better position for 95% of where high school balls are hit.” 
The defensive shift is from a rotational format to a perimeter one in which rather than having the middle back player rotate to cover line drives, all three players are back in different spots, set to play deeper balls but able to move forward if needed.
“Johnna shifts to the middle back for every ball,” Willard explained. “We changed to a perimeter defense because we don’t have a lot of height, so we want our best defender in the best position to pick up the hits we don’t block.” 
Unfortunately, unforced errors plagued the team more often than they would have liked over the weekend.
“We would dig ourselves a hole and then the momentum would go to the other team right away,” Willard frowned. “Unfortunately, we struggled to get out of those holes, so I continued to tell them all weekend that we need to figure out how to win the first ball. They get so down when they get two balls in the hole they act like it’s over. We have to get over it and get tough mentally, because volleyball is a game of errors.”
The Lady Dogies went to the silver bracket on Saturday due to the losses in pool play on Friday. The tournament was a round robin format and Newcastle ended the weekend winning two out of three of their matches.
Willard highlighted the Lady Dogie middle hitter/blockers - Grace Coy and Shawnee Miles - along with Dawson as having played well over the weekend.
“Grace played well, and her swings are really coming around, and I’ve been really impressed with Shawnee’s work ethic and the work she put in over the summer which is showing,” she smiled. “Johnna played well, especially because we were playing a new defense. She will definitely be an asset for us with the game we will be playing this year.”
This weekend the Lady Dogies will compete in the Gillette Tournament on Friday and Saturday. This is a big tournament with many 3A East teams expected to be in attendance. 
“We really have a lot of potential, we just have to believe in that and have confidence,” Willard nodded. “We don’t have height as an advantage, so there has to be a lot of hustle, fight and mental toughness. We have to take care of those things we can control.”