Newcastle Dogies clinch the No. 3 seed
Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
There was a lot riding on the Lady Dogies only contest of the week last Friday as the Lady Bobcats of Thermopolis came to town determined to even the score. The unique nature of the one-and-done format of this year’s Regional tournament, coupled with the fact that the number four ranked Douglas Lady Bearcats are seeded first in the Northeast quadrant, means that no one wants to go into the tournament next Thursday as the No. 4 seed having to face off against the Lady ‘Cats to decide the fate of their season.
Newcastle was confident going into the contest, having defeated Thermopolis earlier in the season and having come off a pretty well-played contest against Torrington the week before, but they knew that in order to ensure avoiding Douglas in round one of Regionals, they had to put Thermopolis away to clinch the No. 3 seed.
As competition began, Dogie fans were a little nervous to see Thermopolis jump out to a sizeable lead, however Newcastle finally got rolling and closed the gap, but did so too late so lost the first set 22-25.
“In typical fashion, we came out kind of slow, but we rallied back to within a few of them, so got some good momentum going heading into the second set,” head coach Keeley Anderson chuckled. “We had Kathleen Engle come in the day before and she did her pep talk about positivity and visualization. The girls really enjoyed that and I think it carried through to that game and you could really see it.”
The Lady Dogies used that end-of-set momentum and segued into the second where they quickly turned the tables on the Lady Bobcats cruising to an easy 25-20 win to tie the match at one set each.
As the match wore on, Dogie fans were treated to a battle of the ‘Big Reds’ as Newcastle sophomore, 6-foot, 2-inch Tiernan Stanton found herself face to face across the net with a Lady Bobcat player who could have been her twin. Standing nearly as tall as Stanton and sporting similar long, red hair, the two battled to claim the net as their own. After Stanton had a few of her first attempts rejected, she settled in and adjusted to her opponent’s play to claim success throwing down 15 kills to seven on the night.
“I don’t think she was fazed or intimidated by her so it was great to see her play up like that. Then she got some crazy digs and she just had a really good game,” Anderson smiled. “Tiernan and I have been working on using her momentum into her approach when she’s hitting and she just really blew me away. She had some pretty monster hits.”
Stanton was also a force from the serving line, racking up five aces to go with her 15 kills and two block assists.
The Lady Dogies’ other middle hitter/blocker, Jaylen Ostenson, also gave the Lady Bobcats a fit when she was on the net finishing with six kills, three stuff blocks, four block assists and one ace on the night.
Shawnee Miles, the Lady Dogies’ starting outside hitter, was out for this contest and Anderson admitted that she was a little concerned about her absence.
“I tried replacing her with Liv [McVay], but her confidence just wasn’t there,” Anderson began. “So we decided to play Honesty [Olson] all the way around and she played really well.”
Olson is one of the Lady Dogies’ setters and hasn’t played in the front row for a while, however, she adapted quickly and was able to put down three kills on the night.
As the teams headed into the third set, it was obvious that both were determined to pull ahead in the match, and fans were in for an exciting run. There were 14 ties in the contest and just as many or more lead changes. It was a nail-biter as they came down the stretch with the teams trading the advantage back and forth until Newcastle was able to edge out Thermopolis with the 26-24 win.
“That was a stressful moment because you don’t want to be the one playing catch-up, behind at one set to two,” Anderson declared. “But thankfully they were able to hang on to pull out the win, because if they hadn’t it would have been a little defeating.”
The Lady Dogies left no doubt that they were the better team in the fourth, and final set of the night as they came out firing on all cylinders and dominated the Lady Bobcats with a 25-14 win to take the set and match.
“You could see that they knew,” Anderson nodded. “You could see that they wanted it more and knew they had them on the ropes and it just looked good.”
The win has Newcastle tied with Buffalo at 2-2 in the quadrant. Overall, the Lady Bison have two more wins on the season against teams that Newcastle doesn’t play. Although seeding for the two and three spots makes no
difference as the two teams will play each other, if the Lady Dogies can move up to take the two seed at the end of this final week of the regular season, it would be a good confidence boost heading into post season play.
It’s a busy final week for Newcastle with four contests to close out the regular season. On Tuesday, the varsity headed to Wheatland to make-up the match that was postponed due to a positive COVID test by a Lady Bulldog player on Oct. 9. On Friday, the team will play their final home contest as they welcome the Lady Cats of Douglas, and then will travel to Buffalo for a triangular against the Lady Bison and the Burns Lady Broncs. Game times in Buffalo are C Team/JV at 9 and varsity at 10 against the Bison and C Team/JV at noon and varsity at 1 p.m. against the Broncs.
“I know we can get both against Buffalo and Burns on Saturday if we play at the level we are capable of playing,” Anderson stated. “It’ll be good to see where we fall in this final week, and it’ll be great if we can slip into the second seed for the intimidation factor.”