Lady Bulldogs clinch second seed for district volleyball tournament

By Abigail Hodgson

UCA Sportswriting

The St. Joseph volleyball team clinched the second seed for the 3A-Central District Tournament on Monday after sweeping Mayflower, 25-14, 25-14, 25-11.

The Lady Bulldogs improved their overall record to 12-5 and conference record to 10-3.

“This was a big win for us,” coach Luke Davis said. “It sews up second place in conference and sends us to the tournament next week.”

A five-point streak midway through the first set moved the Lady Bulldogs ahead, and they clinched the set with another six-point streak. They began the second set with a seven-point run and were able to close it out after a five-point string. The third set also wasn’t a problem for St. Joe, which grabbed an early six-point streak and ended with seven unanswered points.

Junior outside hitter Holly Rega said she was proud of the team’s performance.

“I think we came out and did really well tonight,” Rega said. “We began the first set really good but became a little slow in the second set. Overall, I think we did well.”

The Lady Bulldogs have an automatic bye to the semifinals next Tuesday in the conference tournament. While the time and opponent will be determined by Monday’s results, the semifinal berth guarantees them a slot in the Class 3A State Tournament.

Similar to senior setter Rachel Briggler’s opinion from last week on needing to work on passes, Rega said that the team should focus on passing in sets and serve receive passes.

Davis pointed out that Briggler had a big impact in the match. She had 15 assists through the three-set sweep.

Rega said she hoped the team could break the Lady Bulldogs' recent state tournament history.

“We always lost the first (match) of the tournament,” Rega said. “We need to win the first (match) and see how it goes from there. Just like Coach told us tonight, we won 17 (matches) last year and tonight we won our 17^th of this season. We can only go up from here.”