Netters punch State Tourney ticket

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Editor
 
The Lady Dogies clawed and battled their way through a tough 3A East Regional Tournament bracket last weekend in Thermopolis, and when the smoke cleared, walked away with fourth place and a spot at the 3A State Volleyball Tournament.
In Andrea Gregory’s absence, Keeley Anderson stepped back into the head coach position for the weekend as her team began their quest for an invitation to the Big Dance. 
First up for Newcastle were the Wheatland Lady Bulldogs, who had slipped to the No. 2 seed from the Southeast Quadrant after the final weekend of the regular season. The two teams had not seen each other since early in the season, so each had some catching up to do. It didn’t take long to see that the Lady Dogies clearly had the upper hand over the Bulldogs.
“They are all just so mellow, so I asked them before the game how they were feeling, and they just kind of nonchalantly said ‘good,’” Anderson chuckled. “Then you could see during warm-up that they were dialed in, and then they just left it all out on the court.”
The squad came out playing like a well-oiled machine from the start, repeatedly attacking the net and making few mistakes on their side of the court. Meanwhile, Wheatland helped out the Lady Dogies with their first round win by committing quite a few errors themselves.
Newcastle dominated the first set, cruising to an easy 25-11 win. The second set was a little sloppy, but Anderson’s crew was able to keep pushing the attack to keep the Bulldogs on their heels and came from behind to take it 25-17. The third set was another one controlled exclusively by the Lady Dogies as they took both set and match 25-13.
The win advanced the squad to the semifinal match on Friday afternoon against Buffalo. The Lady Bison had earned their way to the semis with a four-set defeat of Rawlins earlier in the day.
Buffalo played extraordinarily well all weekend, and the semifinal match on Friday was certainly no exception.
“They came ready to take the title,” Anderson admitted. “We were doing all the right things, but it just wasn’t connecting. Our blocking was off, and we couldn’t keep up with their hitters.”
The Lady Bison were just too much for Newcastle, defeating them in three straight sets 25-13, 25-15, and 25-21, and they would go on to become the 3A East Regional champions. 
After the loss, the girls were upset, but Anderson reminded them that either team they would take on in the loser-out game the next afternoon — Torrington or Thermopolis — they had beaten twice before, so as long as they played their game, they were going to the state tournament.
“Obviously, playing for first place would have been fun but going to state is pretty cool, too,” Anderson said. “So I just wanted to make sure the girls could refocus and be ready to play on Saturday.”
The high-stakes contest against Torrington on Saturday afternoon was a battle for both teams. The Lady
Trailblazers and the Lady Dogies were fighting for their season and to play another day, so both teams gave it everything they had.
Newcastle started strong and quickly pulled out to an 8-2 lead, but then Torrington came blazing back to pull within reach. Late in the set, the Lady ‘Blazers went on a 7-0 run, which gave them the momentum to take it with a 25-19 advantage.
That was the wake-up call for Newcastle as they rallied to take sets two and three 25-18 and 25-17 respectively. With the two-set lead, the teams headed into the fourth set, where Torrington was prepared to fight for their lives. The Lady Dogies were able to pull to an 8-point advantage, but then the ‘Blazers made a late game push to tie things up at 24. From there the two teams went point for point, with the lead changing hands three times until Newcastle finally put them away with their 29-27 point win. 
“I kept telling the girls that we didn’t want to go to a fifth set, and that we wanted to finish the match
in set number four,” Anderson insisted. “We had to take advantage of having Tiernan [Stanton] and Jay [Ostenson] in the front, while Reece Halley was in the back. We covered their tall middle well during that rotation, and they really stuck it out to finish them off.”
With the win, the Lady Dogies punched their ticket to the state tournament, but they still had one more match to go to determine seeding for that tournament. Douglas had also secured a spot, so the two would play for third and fourth.
Newcastle played nine hard sets with only 20 minutes of rest between Torrington and Douglas, and with all the emotion spent in the pivotal match against Torrington, the ladies were a little tired during their final match of the weekend.
Douglas jumped out on Newcastle to start, pulling ahead by as much as 9 before the Lady Dogies came crawling back. Time ran out for Anderson’s squad, however, and they dropped the first set 21-25.
That first set warmed them up, however, as the second was almost a mirror opposite, with Newcastle dominating the Lady ‘Cats to cruise to a 25-18 win, tying up the match.
In the third set, it became apparent that the Lady Dogies were running out of steam, when at one point, two players watched a ball drop between them — a rarity for this team.
“Volleyball is such a mental game, and I struggled a bit in getting them into the game,” Anderson admitted. “I called two timeouts pretty close together, because I had to do something to slow down Douglas’ roll.”
The Lady ‘Cats were able to go back up one set by taking the third 25-20. 
The fourth set was do or die, and Newcastle decided to do, cruising to a pretty easy 25-17 win to tie things up once again.
“We had a lot of good points from Tiernan hitting, but her timing on her block was a little off,” Anderson began. “But jumping that much is so tiring, so it’s understandable that she started to wear down after playing that many sets in a row, in high stress games. MacKenzie Conzelman worked so hard on getting touches on the block, so that also helped us out in the back row.”
With each team having won two sets apiece, this brought up the pivotal fifth set.
“I’m a side over serve kind of person,” Anderson noted. “There was a side we were all winning on, but we ended up having to go back to the other side in the fifth set. Whether or not that made a difference, who knows?”
The final set was a battle from start to finish, where the biggest lead of the game was enjoyed by Newcastle with just a three-point differential.
“Douglas thought it was a fluke that we beat them during the season, so we had something to fight for,” determined Anderson. “The girls made them work for every single point, and we actually scored more points than they did, even though they ended up taking the win.”
The two teams traded one point leads as the score neared 15, but Douglas would ultimately get the 17-15 win to finish in third place.
There were some big hits put down by the Lady Dogies throughout the two days of competition, and Stanton finished the tournament with 54 kills, while Ostenson racked up 48 of her own.
The fourth-place finish has the Lady Dogies pitted against the Mt. View Wranglers to start the state tournament Thursday night in Casper.
As the No. 4 seed from the east, Newcastle has Mt. View, Lander and Burns on their side of the bracket. Like the regional tournament, Newcastle has the potential to place anywhere from first to fourth, but have to win two games before they lose two games to get there. 
The Thursday night contest is scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m., at the Event Center in Casper.  
“There’s not a lot of difference between the first and second seed from the west as both Mt. View and Lyman are both pretty good. The west side is pretty strong, so we need to be playing our best volleyball on Thursday,” Anderson said. “If we can’t get past them, we can still go for third. Our ultimate goal this season was to get to state, and we did that so anything else, in my opinion, is just gravy. Obviously, we’d like to do well at state and we’re going to give it everything we’ve got. If we show up ready to compete like we did against Wheatland, we’ve got a pretty good shot.”