Ladies look to get their shine on

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
The Lady Dogies finished off the regular season with three conference games last weekend. On Friday, the team travelled to Douglas for a rematch against the Lady Bearcats who are the second ranked team in the east conference. Then on Saturday, head coach Jenny Willard’s squad hosted a triangular against Buffalo and Burns.
Willard and her crew knew that Friday’s contest was going to be a challenge, and perhaps that knowledge affected the Lady Dogies performance as things got underway.
“The first and second sets against Douglas were pretty rough,” Willard admitted. “Our serve receive wasn’t great and we just couldn’t do anything to stop their runs.”
The Lady Cats took advantage of the momentum they established by cruising to wins easily, 25-9 and 25-12, in the first two sets.
It seemed as though a switch was thrown in the third set, however, as the Lady Dogies began to turn things around.
“We just brought another mojo and a whole new energy to the third set,” Willard exclaimed. “We went on some runs and never got into any big deficits which was awesome after how we played in the first two.”
Though Douglas would ultimately win the match by taking the third set, it was by a much closer margin of 25-23.
“The way we played at the end was a real confidence booster, and it felt pretty good going into the triangular against Buffalo and Burns,” Willard nodded. “I was really hoping to bring that energy into the contest against the Bison on Saturday morning, but unfortunately the team came out flat.”
Willard admitted that it was a pretty quick turnaround after arriving home at 10 p.m. the night before, however, Saturday’s first contest didn’t start until 10:30 so she said the previous evening was not an excuse.
“We just had a really rough start to the day and could not get going,” Willard sighed. “Serving wasn’t too bad, but our serve receive was again lackluster. We really couldn’t get ourselves set up to do much and we seemed to be playing on our heels the whole time. Once again we played to survive, not to win.”
The Lady Dogies took a break during the second match of the day between Burns and Buffalo. The Lady Broncs owned the Lady Bison in the first two sets of their match, and continued to dominate until they lost their libero to a knee injury early in the third. After that the Broncs fell apart and Buffalo went on to take the match in five sets.
“After watching that match, I told the girls that Burns can be a very mental team as well,” Willard declared. “It was obvious from that game that they can be on top and really feed off the moment, but when they’re down and sucked into that hole, we need to take advantage of it.”
The matchup against the Lady Broncs was definitely a battle from the first serve, as the teams went back and forth. 
Burns took the first two sets 25-21 and 25-22, respectively, but the Lady Dogies rebounded in the third, leading nearly the entire time. It came down to a real fight at the end with the two teams trading the lead, but Newcastle ended up on top winning 27-25.
The Lady Dogies continued to push their advantage in the fourth set, until Burns took advantage of a momentum shift to overtake Newcastle and win the set and match 25-23.
“Mental toughness definitely came into play, but we really need to overcome that as we head into the Regional tournament this weekend,” Willard stated. “I really thought we were going to push our advantage and push that game to five sets, but it just didn’t happen.”
Newcastle will start the Regional tournament next weekend with a tough go against number one ranked Rawlins in the first game, but season records reset at 0-0 when postseason play begins. 
“We’re really just focusing on what we can control on our end and what we know how to do, and we’re going to come in and hopefully play our best ball all season,” Willard nodded. “We are going to come in with the right mindset and be resilient with whatever is thrown at us, because we have come a long way since the opening tournament in August. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it’s time for us to be peaking and playing our best ball.”
Newcastle will take on Rawlins at 9 a.m. in the opening contest of the 3A East Regional tournament in Buffalo on Friday. Win or lose, the Lady Dogies will face off against either Burns or Buffalo, so will have the opportunity to even the score with one of those teams. 
“We’ve played with both teams pretty well this season, so it could very easily turn out in our favor this time around,” Willard determined. “We’ve really shown moments of playing really good ball, so I told the girls that it’s time to stop simply glimmering and bring on our full on shine.”