Conway Lady Cats remain undefeated in conference

By Ben Rowell
UCA sportswriting

The Conway Lady Cats swept the Russellville Lady Cyclones Thursday night, 25-13, 25-21, 25-8, to remain perfect in the 7A-Central volleyball conference.

Conway improved to 8-2 overall and 3-0 in conference play.

Russellville was the only team to defeat the Lady Cats in 7A-Central play last season.

“We played [Russellville] in Spikefest this year in Little Rock and managed to shut down their defense," Conway coach Laura Crow said. "They are usually pretty scrappy, and our strategy was to beat them in three (games).”

Game 1 got off to a rough start for the Lady Cats, who trailed 4-1 before finally gaining their momentum and moving ahead, 7-5. The Lady Cats put that game away, 25-13, with a kill from senior Jasmyn Wilkins, who scored six points on the night and had three blocks.

The second game also began slowly for the Lady Cats as they struggled to regain the lead. But junior Caitlin Trickett served seven straight points, including four aces. Trickett had five aces in the match.

“Overall I feel very good,” Crow said. “Offensively, Russellville was struggling with our serves. They began to gain some momentum in the second game, but we shut them down.”

In Game 3, the Lady Cats found their groove and easily overtook the Lady Cyclones, 25-8, with the help of Mary
Dunlap, who recorded six of her 10 kills in that game alone.

“I feel that our team meshed together well tonight and was very dynamic,” Dunlap said.

Senior Payton Hart, called "the quarterback of the team" by Crow, turned in 26 assists, seven kills and two blocks.

"We have really good chemistry," Hart said. "We have played with each other for a while and everyone is really good friends.”

The Lady Cats will travel to Van Buren on Tuesday to face the Lady Pointers in another 7A-Central match.

"Van Buren is a good team," Crow said. "We still need to work on our middle offense. Our outside hitters did really well and our defense did a really good job at getting the balls up and not letting anything hit the ground. It all came around toward the end.”