Lady Cats 'played their hearts out'

The Lady Bobcat volleyball team headed to Newcastle last week and according to coach Shannon Hill, they "played their hearts out", winning in three with grit and perseverance.

Final scores for the match were 25-22, 25-22 and 29-27 with game three an amazing one to watch.

Hill said the girls were down 18-23 and Ashley McPhie stepped back to serve and nailed five in a row, tieing it up 23-23.

From there, Hill said the game went back and forth until it was 27-27 and Sesi Jensen stepped back and made her serves while the offense and defense did their jobs, finishing the match 29-27.

"It was a huge boost for our girls to prove to themselves that they can step up and fight back if they focus in," she said.

McPhie finished the day with 10 kill, three blocks and three aces, followed by Jensen with eight kills.

Kaylee DeVries dropped for 12 digs, two blocks and two aces while Tatum Vialpando racked up seven kills and four blocks. Dani Jo Pebbles was all over the court, coming up with 27 assists.

The freshman girls had a tough match against Newcastle, but Hill said they learned a lot from each game.

The JV girls beat Newcastle in three with a close third game that they focused in on and won by two points.

"It was a great team effort," Hill said, "and proved that they can pull off the close games, too."

On Saturday the Lady Cats faced Douglas on their home court.

"Douglas is beatable for us," Hill said, "but they are coached well and have solid fundamentals and definitely beat us in the serving/passing game."

The girls played well on Saturday with points, but couldn't hang on to momentum long enough to get a game from them. The third game, Hill said the girls had a mental block and let errors get the best of them.

The girls finished the day 17-25, 20-25 and 6-25.

Against Douglas, Jensen had two aces and four kills, McPhie brought in five kills and nine digs and DeVries added seven digs and two blocks to her stats.

The freshmen and JV teams lost to Douglas as well, but Hill said the freshmen showed a lot of growth and were able to set the ball up nicely. "We just needed to focus on passing and finishing the ball," she said.

JV had another close match that went to three and unfortunately, this one did not end in the Cat's favor.

"The girls played tough and never gave up," she said, "we just let silly errors take over at the end."

The Lady Cats will be in Buffalo on Saturday with games starting at 2 p.m.