Ladies take some lumps

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
The Lady Dogie Volleyball team faced off against some tough competition last weekend at the Gillette Tournament. Head coach Jenny Willard was pleased to see her team raise their level of play to that of their bigger opponents, but was disappointed to see that level drop against the smaller schools.
“I was really happy to see that the girls are capable of playing up to their competition when we played the 4A teams,” she nodded. “They were able to match their skill, but we struggled to maintain that on day two against the 3A and 2A teams. We need to learn to stay up and play at the level we’re capable of regardless of our competition.”
The Lady Dogies began tournament play against St. Thomas More who bested the squad 25-10 and 25-15. Newcastle rallied from that loss to give Laramie a run for their money before succumbing to the larger team 23-25 and 17-25. The final matchup on Friday was against Billings who presented the biggest challenge of the day. Unfortunately, the Lady Dogies were only able to score 12 points per set against this powerhouse team.
“Against Laramie, we were looking really good with the new defense that we put in,” Willard began. “But again, some of the little things like transitioning off the net, getting our footwork down for blocking, and more of those fundamental skills to be able to take it over the top and push to the final 25 got in the way.”
Willard pointed out that volleyball is a game of momentum and one of the few sports where you can get a point off of an error. She stressed that her team has to be able to go on runs of their own, and not just play ball for ball.
“Rather than being aggressive and hammering the ball down, we sent them quite a few free balls and then got drilled defensively,” she frowned. “We play pretty one-sided right now so we need to be able to see the court and play both sides of the net.”
The first opponent up on Saturday was Big Horn, a team that Newcastle had defeated in three sets last weekend in Douglas. Unfortunately, the Lady Dogies were unable to come out on top this time around and lost in two sets, 19-25 and 20-25.
“You could tell we were fatigued and were making a lot of mental errors like swinging into the net, pushing it into the net, setting into the net, and serving into the net,” Willard frowned. “It was unforced little errors that added up and beat us, and we shouldn’t have been any more tired than any other team since we were all in the same boat.”
The second matchup had the Lady Dogies pitted against Burns who is a 3A East opponent. Fortunately, the squad rallied for this contest, beating the Broncs in three sets, 25-15, 23-25 and 27-25. 
“They looked good against Burns. They went out with a lot of confidence like we’d seen on Friday and were able to put some things together,” Willard smiled. “Our mindset going into the third set was to push to 15. When we got there and realized the game went to 25, our mindset changed to beat them to 25.”
Though Newcastle beat them to 25, it was only by one point so the contest continued until the Lady Dogies established a two-point lead at 27-25.
The final match of the weekend was against Wheatland, where Newcastle lost both sets  21-25.
“Honestly, Wheatland wasn’t comparable to the first two teams we played, but they beat us in two so it really is just a matter of mental toughness and being able to play through even when we’re tired.” Willard admitted.” Everyone was tired by that time in the tournament, so it was no excuse.”
Though the weekend did not end as the team had wished, Willard stressed that there were some definite positives to draw from it. 
“We are starting to understand the defense and why we are doing the things we’re doing regarding placement,” she declared. “They are watching other teams and are able to tell me the kind of defense they are running and they are figuring out the holes in those defenses, which goes back to playing both sides of the net. They’re learning to play smarter not harder, which is what we need to do since we lack height on our team.”
This weekend the squad will head to yet another two-day tournament in Rawlins which will be the last long trip for a while. This is a large tournament which most of the 3A teams in the state attend.
“ It will be a good chance to see those teams in action and get a look at what the season will look like,” Willard predicted. “It’ll be good to see where we stand against the conference after some of the big teams we’ve played so far.”