SWT Sports Writer
sports@southwesttimes.com
DUBLIN – The Lady Cougar volleyball team suffered a tough setback on “Senior Night”, as they fell to Salem at home on Thursday in their final regular season game, 3-0 (17-25, 15-25, 16-25).
“The girl’s played hard,” Surber said. “I feel like need to play from point one and not point nine. We need to start from the beginning of the game. We can’t wait until the end of the game to start playing. Overall, it was a good match. I am proud of my kids.”
Before the game got underway, the Cougars honored their two senior players, Ashley Burleson and Lauren Stanley. Both were given flowers and gifts before the starting lineups were introduced. Afterwards, the game got underway.
Once again this week, the Cougars (8-12, 1-9) were short a player. Tamar Smith did return after being out of the game against Blacksburg on Tuesday, but teammate Jette Wade was out after suffering a head injury at school.
Emily Richardson powered the Spartans (5-14, 1-9) in the first game. She would get two kills in the first four points of the first game, allowing Salem to pull out to the early 4-1 lead. Salem would hold the lead through the first part of the game.
Pulaski made a rally towards the end of the first. After an ace by Salem’s Justice Halstead with the score 16-7, the Cougars would score six of the next seven points to pull to within 17-13. Amanda Salinas had two kills, while Becky Pennington and Burleson added a kill. That would force Salem to take a timeout.
After the timeout, it would once again be Richardson that would take the Spartans over the top. She would have three kills in the waning moments of the first game to help Salem take the early one game lead. She had seven kills and an ace in the opening stanza.
“Tamar [Smith] dug her [Richardson] up pretty good all night,” Surber said “They just did a couple things on us. They tipped on us and we didn’t pick it up when we should have. I think that was a big difference in the game. Of course, you can’t start out down 6-0 either.”
With Richardson’s help again, Salem would jump out to an early 7-0 lead. She finished with 14 kills in the game. The Cougars would rally on the serve of Amanda Salinas, just like they did Tuesday at Blacksburg. With the score 9-3, the Cougars scored four in a row to pull back to within two at 9-7.
However, Salem would rally once again with Richardson. On her serve, she would have three aces and a kill, as Salem’s lead extended to 14-7. The Cougars would attempt to get back into striking distance in the second game, but could not catch up.
The third game saw the Cougars stay close with the Spartans. The two teams remained within a couple of points of one another all the way through the middle of the game. During the 11-9 mark, Burleson would break the 1,000 dig mark for her career.
Just moments later though, a controversial call was made. A serve was made by Salem’s Katie Helvey and all the Cougar defenders appeared to move out of the way. Her serve would land out. However, the officials said that a Cougar defender touched the ball, which gave the point and serve back to Salem.
That moment was crucial and seemed to send the Cougars into a lull. Following that point, Salem rolled off five straight scores, four coming off of the serve of Helvey. The run ultimately doomed the Cougars in the game and match.
Following Thursday’s contest, both Burleson and Stanley reflected on their final games at home in their Cougar careers.
“I think we are sad seeing our last home game,” Burleson said. “We are all so close. It sucks we won’t get to play anymore here at home.”
“This is really sad that this is my last home game,” Stanley said. “I’ve gotten close with a lot of the girl’s. We are all so tight. The bad part is we are going to lose our whole volleyball family.”
“I was really proud of the way they both played tonight,” Surber said. “They have both stepped it up and been a tremendous help for us overall all year long.”
The Cougars now enter postseason play, as they will travel to Blacksburg to take on the Bruins in the first round of the River Ridge District tournament. This will be the second time in two weeks that the two teams have played in Blacksburg.
“This is the third time we have played them,” Surber said. “I felt like we played them really well at their place last week. We just have to pick up our play a little bit. We have to do more things right than wrong.”
The JV squad had their final game of the season on Thursday. They were victorious against Salem, 2-1 (26-24, 16-25, 15-6). They finish the season at 13-7 overall and 3-7 in district play.
(10-30-09)
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