Struggle continues

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
The Lady Dogie volleyball team faced another week of disappointing outcomes as they took on the Lady Bearcats of Douglas and the Lady Bulldogs of Sundance. Both teams got the better of Newcastle in three straight sets.
According to head coach Jenny Willard, her squad continued to struggle with maintaining consistency and holding on to the advantage when they have it. 
“We played Douglas pretty well, but we just can’t seem to get over the hump right now,” she sighed. “We took better care of the fundamental things against them, but we still need to be able to put more runs together than what we are right now.”
In the third set, the Lady Dogies came out dominant against the Bearcats and had them on their heels for the first half of the contest. However, once Douglas took momentum, they went on a 10-12 point run to take the lead and ultimately finish off Newcastle.
“That has been our issue all season,” Willard began. “We will go on runs and have our opponent on the ropes, and then they start coming back and we can’t stop the run. So that’s what we are working on in
practice now.” 
Willard explained that in order to get out of drills in practice this week, the girls have to put up a string of runs in order to move on. That’s been a focus all season, but Willard stated that it is becoming urgent for that to translate from practice into games.
“In Sundance we just didn’t play well,” Willard admitted. “We were up again in the first set, but then they went on a run and we ended up falling apart to lose it 25-27.”
Willard identified mental errors and unforced errors on the part of her team as reasons for the second three-set loss of the week.
“We were right with them in the first two sets, but then we got blown away in the third,” she began. “The Bulldogs weren’t doing anything different from set one to set three, so it was really just all on us.”
Willard also changed the lineup in set three because some players were struggling, but she insisted the loss didn’t have anything to do with who was on
the court.
“We just mentally couldn’t pull it together as a team,” she nodded. “I think it’s defeating when you consistently lose the first two sets, so when you go into the third it’s just hard to overcome, but we’ve got to be able to play until the end.”
“We just really ended up beating ourselves,” Willard continued. “We see glimmers of the potential they have, and we know they are so very capable of doing it, it’s just that they have to believe in themselves.”
Working on mental toughness and establishing an expectation to win is a focus for the Lady Dogies from here on out this season. Willard explained that the goal will be to look toward the back half of the season and how to achieve their goals as they prepare for postseason play which is fast approaching.
“What matters now is growing and getting better and it’s a matter of the team deciding they are able to do what they need to get over that hump,” Willard determined. “We’ve been so neck-and-neck with our opponents all season, and though we haven’t won a lot of sets, we’ve been in almost every one of those we’ve played, so we just have to make it happen as far as the will of the
game goes.”
The Lady Dogies begin the back half of their season this week with a rematch against Wheatland at home on Friday, which is also senior night for the players, and they will head to Torrington on Saturday to try to even the score against the
Lady Blazers. 
“We know Wheatland puts in 100% effort on every ball and that’s an effort we need to try to match and play up to. They don’t give up on a ball, so if we can match their effort it should be a good outcome for us,” Willard nodded. “We played Torrington close last time and we could have a totally different outcome on a different day, so that is what we will be shooting for.”