Beatty volleyball to play Tonopah in semifinals in Alamo, winner to state
Once again Beatty and Tonopah find themselves locked in battle in the 1A Southern League playoffs. The victor will go on to vie for the regional title and move on to state.
The two teams will face off this Saturday at 1:45 p.m. at Pahranagat Valley High in Alamo. The winner of that match will play at 4 p.m. in the regional championship.
The Lady Hornets volleyball team finished their season as the second-place seed in the playoffs after losing to the first-place seed, Pahranagat Valley last Thursday and lost in three sets, 25-16, 25-14 and 25-16.
“We showed up ready to play and led up until the halfway mark of the first set,” Hornets coach Steve Sullivan said. “Once Alamo started fighting back and swinging at us we sort of shut down. We never gave up fighting completely but we have a tendency that when we make a mistake we wear it on our face. Alamo would pick up on that and would target on their serves or on their kills.”
Sullivan knows to win against a team like the Panthers, one can’t make errors. Teams playing Alamo have to be near perfect for they rarely make mistakes.
Beatty’s (17-3 overall, 6-1, 1A Southern) second-place seed earned them a bye in the playoffs, which allowed them to prepare for their semifinal game against Tonopah. The team hopes to beat the Muckers to face Pahranagat Valley (19-6, 7-0) again in the championship match.
The third seed Lady Muckers (15-13, 5-2) dispatched the sixth-place seed Word of Life (4-12, 2-5) in four sets, 25-20, 19-25, 27-25, 25-11 to earn the chance for the rematch against the Hornets.
“The girls’ attitudes are positive and we are looking forward to facing Tonopah and a rematch with Alamo,” he said. “We will continue to work on our all-around game digging, hitting, positioning, serving.”
Sullivan said if the team did make it past the Muckers, he would have to face the heavy-hitting of the Panthers and have to learn to deal with their serving.
“We heard that they serve aggressively by changing up their serves (deep, then short),” the coach said. “We tried matching that but we did not have a full grasp on that and we ended up making 11 service errors.”
Contact sports editor Vern Hee at pvtimes.com
