NHS netters grab back-to-back wins

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Editor
 
The Lady Dogies pulled off back-to-back wins on Friday and Saturday as they faced Torrington and Wheatland for the second time this season. 
A couple of weeks ago, Newcastle hosted the Lady Trailblazers in the NHS Homecoming match, and defeated the Goshen County squad
in four sets. On Friday, Torrington was looking for revenge when the Lady Dogies stepped on their Homecoming court. 
However, their vengeance was not satisfied as once again, Newcastle took the contest in four sets. 
“Overall, we played pretty well,” acting head coach Andrea Gregory declared. “But, we had moments in a few sets where we let them get 4 or 5 points ahead of us. We were able to rally for the win though, so that was good to see.”
Early in the first set, it looked as though Torrington had the momentum as they jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead over Newcastle. A quick time-out by Gregory to get her girls re-centered helped to swing control of the set to the Dogies.
But the ‘Blazers were determined and pulled ahead late, but then a battle ensued until Newcastle was able to rally to push for the 26-24 victory.
Set two had Newcastle comfortably in control throughout and they cruised to a 25-18 win, but then the third set doldrums set in and mistakes on their own side of the net coupled with aggressive line hitting by outside ‘Blazer hitter Reece Halley gave Torrington the 25-22 win which pushed the match to a fourth set.
“We had what is becoming our ‘third set slump’ again,” Gregory admitted. “We started playing to survive instead of hitting the ball.”
Despite the loss in the third, the Lady Dogies had gained momentum to close the gap late in the set which they carried over to the fourth where they finished off the Lady ‘Blazers with a 25-20 set, and match victory.
“We missed four serves in the first set which is unacceptable,” Gregory said. “We ended up getting it under control as the match wore on, though.”
The rematch against the Lady Bulldogs on Saturday was not exactly what Newcastle wanted after losing in five in Wheatland two weeks prior. 
Unfortunately, Wheatland had scheduled too many contests for the year, so were unable to compete as a varsity squad. Therefore, the Lady Dogie varsity team went up against the Lady Bulldogs’ junior varsity crew. 
“I challenged the girls to work on our slides, our tandems and our quicks during this game,” Gregory began. “Obviously, we knew we should dominate because it was their JV, so I wanted to make sure that the girls were focused on working on their game.”
In the first two sets, the Lady Dogies demonstrated for all in the gym the difference that exists between junior varsity and varsity level play by defeating Wheatland 25-8 and 25-6 respectively. 
“The girls were a little disappointed that they didn’t get to play their varsity,” nodded Gregory. “But I had each girl spot serve every single player, so that was a good opportunity for us to work on that part of the game.”
Like a cat playing with its prey, the Lady Dogies let the Bulldogs hang around a little in the third set, but then finished them off with the 25-16 set-and-match win. 
Newcastle is back to quadrant action this week as they travel to Thermopolis for a second go-round against the Lady Bobcats. As the regular season winds down, each quadrant match-up is important for seeding purposes for the Regional Tournament. Matches are scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. for the C team, followed by the JV and varsity.