Cowgirls volleyball wins first match, then lose to Beckman in semi-finals at state

      If heart, desire and determination could be enough to win a volleyball match the Cowgirls would have been playing for the 2A championship at state volleyball. Unfortunately, it also takes the actual work needed to defeat your opponent on the court and in this case Beckman Catholic was just too strong a team as the Cowgirls second straight trip ends one step short of the title chance. Set scores were 25-15, 25-18 and 25-18. As evidenced by the closeness of those scores, they didn’t make it easy as the Blazers had to work for it. The loss broke a nine match win streak, along with an eight match string of not even giving up a set. There’s no doubt the team ended the season playing their best volleyball, which is what every team in the state wants to do.

     Set one saw the Cowgirls stay close at 4-2 before a net violation gave the ball back to Beckman as they lead 5-2. After another Cowgirl point, the Blazers went on a two point run in a strong attack before the Cowgirls stopped it at 7-4. A bit later, a Kendall Lienemann kill made it just a three-point deficit at 9-6. With Kendall in the serving position, Morgan Middleton stepped into a hit over which went just over the line for a Blazer point. After one more, Middleton made up for it with a nice cross court kill from her left side spot to make it 11-7.

      A Blazer net violation pulled them within three, and a point later a Middleton kill made it 12-9 Blazers. Beckman scored a couple more before a Lexie Lane smash kept the Cowgirls within three. It seemed they just couldn’t put a nice run together, and were mostly needing to play good defense to keep the Blazers at bay. Even though they had some great saves in the middle of the set, the Blazers went on a run to force coach TerHark to call timeout at 17-11.

For the full story and state tournament photos, see this week's Monitor.