Following back-to-back wins on the road, Aledo’s varsity volleyball team had the opportunity to play host to Saginaw and Brewer in the last week, routing both visiting squads along the way, as they moved into first place in the District 5-5A standings.
After struggling to put teams away earlier in district play, the Ladycats (24-8 overall, 5-1 in district), ranked No. 25 in the state, have completed three straight shutouts. On Friday, Sept. 22, Aledo trampled the Lady Rough Riders by scores of 25-13, 25-16, and 25-15. Not to be outdone, the hometown team sent the Lady Bears into an early hibernation, besting the visiting team 25-12, 25-18, and 25-14 on Tuesday, Sept. 26.
“It’s definitely something we’ve been working on in practice,” said Aledo head coach Claire Gay regarding her club’s recent success pitching shutouts. “We’ve been putting them in situational drills where they’re having to get out of it down the stretch when they’re tired from practice. Hopefully that’s paying off.”
In Tuesday’s match against Brewer, the Ladycats victory was never in doubt. Once the Senior Night festivities concluded, Aledo went right to work. Recently returning from injury, a healthy Vivian Parker showed what a scary force of nature she can be early in the first set. Parker catapulted the Ladycats into the lead, firing missiles across the net at the Lady Bears from her outside hitter position.
Aledo’s lead became concerning for the Lady Bears as they called the first timeout of the match in an attempt to halt the Ladycat scoring frenzy at 18-10. The measure failed as Aledo outscored Brewer 7-2 to close out the first set.
The second set didn’t go much better for the visiting Lady Bears. Rapidly, the Ladycats scored almost at will regardless of what the opposing team tried to do. Before long Aledo held a commanding lead, once again forcing the Lady Bears to burn a timeout in a vain attempt to slow the scoring onslaught with the home team leading, 17-10.
Once again there was no delaying the inevitable as Aledo won the set by a seven-point spread.
In the third set, Aledo jumped out to a commanding lead at 12-7 prompting another Brewer timeout. In the past, that strategy may have worked as the Ladycats were prone to giving opponents enough space to make a contest out of being on the brink of defeat.
That was then. This is now.
The Ladycats continued to work as a unit to overwhelm the visiting team. Leading 21-14, Kenrie Pruitt took to the service line for Aledo. With Pruitt at the line, Aledo scored three quick points to put themselves one point away from securing the match. The one timeout called by Gay all match was with her team one point away from securing the match in order to take a moment to pay homage to the seniors on their final Senior Night.
As play resumed, Pruitt once again served the ball for the Ladycats as the home team scored the final point of the match for their fifth consecutive district win.
Alyssa Todd has secured her spot among the top scoring threats on this Ladycat squad. She scored 14 kills on Tuesday giving her a grand total of 281 on the season so far. Parker had 11 kills to go along with her 14 digs on the night. Pruitt also had 14 digs as she now leads the Ladycats in that category with 342 on the year.
Reding edged closer to 700 assists on the season with 25 on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Ella Isbell and Skyler Lambert each picked up a pair of blocks while defending the net.
Send them back to Saginaw
The Ladycats kicked off Friday’s Homecoming festivities early with a rout of the Lady Rough Riders. Parker ended the match leading the Ladycats in two statistical categories as she finished with double digits for both kills and digs as she finished with 16 and 13, respectively.
Elms also finished in double-digits in kills with 13 to her credit.
Denbow and Meador also had double-digit digs. Denbow collected 13 while Meador had 11.
Ava Reding had another stellar night. The setter and resident master of assists added 33 to her season total while also scoring a trio of aces from the service line.
Lowe picked up a pair of blocks at the net, as well.
Northwest next
Next up on the schedule for the Ladycats is a road trip to Justin on Tuesday, Oct. 3. The Lady Texans are the only district team Aledo has failed to put away the past two seasons. Currently, the Ladycats sit in first place in the district, but Northwest is the club that handed them their only loss of districts thus far.
That match in Justin is slated to start at 6 p.m.
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