Lady Tigers season comes to an end in district play
By Eric Wade
Nevada Daily Mail
CLINTON, Mo. -- The Nevada Lady Tigers volleyball team saw its season come to an end Monday night in the Class 3, District 12 tournament at Clinton High School.
The Lady Tigers came into the night as the tournament's third seed and were forced to play two matches in the same night. The Lady Tigers ultimately ended up finishing the night and the tournament with a 1-1 record, finishing just one match short of the district championship.
In the first match of the night, the Lady Tigers came in as a decided favorite over the sixth-seeded Lady Wildcats of Harrisonville, but still had to come from behind to take what ultimately became a tough, hard-fought win by the final scores of 22-25, 25-23 and 25-21 -- only dropping the first set.
The Lady Wildcats used the momentum they got from beating Nevada in tournament play during the regular season throughout the opening set. Both squads got off to a shaky start, fighting a number of hitting errors and missed serves in a set that ultimately stayed close throughout.
Harrisonville simply refused to go down, ultimately riding a couple of late runs to take the victory by a final score of 25-22.
The second set went much better for Nevada, but the two squads spent the majority of the match simply trading runs of three to six points and it looked as though the set could end up going to extra points before a winner was decided.
That didn't happen, however, as the Lady Tigers ultimately finished out the set shutting down a 4-0 Lady Wildcats run and scoring the final two points to earn the victory by a final score of 25-23.
The tension and excitement in the air could almost be felt as a physical weight in the atmosphere as both squads took to the floor with one thing in mind -- win or go home.
On both sides of the net, motivation from the potential of the season's being just one set away from over was obvious, and the two squads traded a series of runs.
Nevada finally found the intensity Thoreson had been looking for all match long late in the set after Harrisonville took a 20-15 lead with a 7-0 run. Harrisonville managed just one more point in the match as the Lady Tigers' capitalized on that intensity and steamed ahead, finishing the match on a 10-1 run and earning the victory to move on to the tournament semifinals.
The story was much the same when the Lady Tigers got back on the floor later in the night to take on the second-seeded Carl Junction Lady Bulldogs.
The Lady Bulldogs took advantage of a number of early hitting and serving errors by Nevada, as well as a few questionable calls from officials, to take the victory by the final scores of 25-14 and 25-20.
Despite trading 5-0 runs to keep the match even through the beginning portions, a strong Carl Junction squad never seemed rattled and ultimately took control, winning the set by a final score of 25-14.
The second set was an entirely different story as Carl Junction ultimately found itself on the good end of several questionable calls both at the net and on the boundaries, but the Lady Tigers still simply refused to go down and fought hard.
In a set that wasn't separated by more than two points for nearly its entire duration, the Lady Bulldogs ultimately closed out the match with a 5-0 run to take the win by a final score of 25-20.
With the loss, the Lady Tigers' season came to an end with an overall record of 19-9-4.