PHS volleyball rolls into postseason

Host regional tourney starting Friday

Posted 10/29/24

In the final match of the season the Powell Panther volleyball team started slow against the Lovell Bulldogs on the road, but overcame a near double-digit deficit in the first set before rolling to a …

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PHS volleyball rolls into postseason

Host regional tourney starting Friday

Posted

In the final match of the season the Powell Panther volleyball team started slow against the Lovell Bulldogs on the road, but overcame a near double-digit deficit in the first set before rolling to a sweep to cap off the regular season last Thursday.

    

POWELL 3, LOVELL 0

(25-22, 25-19, 25-13)

Wrapping up the regular season on the road the Panthers (24-6-1 overall, 8-2 3A West) were not playing for seeding in their final match, while the Bulldogs (12-13 overall, 2-8 3A West) were attempting to move up the rankings to end the year.

Lovell came out strong early, building a 10-5 and then 14-7 lead.

“We had a timeout and just talked about, just like every other team we play, they’re going to get great kills and make great plays,” coach Anna Flitner said. “They were playing really hard and not letting anything hit the floor. We just talked about making sure we were controlling what we could control on our side and still swinging aggressively to try to keep them out of system, so that we could continue to get hard swings throughout the match.”

Powell finally came back and pushed closer behind Alexa Richardson’s serving to make it 18-15.

The Panthers tied it at 19 and forced a Lovell timeout, before Addison Holcomb gave the Panthers the lead on a kill.

Catelynn Floy capped off the comeback with a kill as the Panthers took the set 25-22.

The second set started better for the Panthers, as Leah Graham gave the Panthers a 7-6 lead on an ace.

Richardson extended the lead to 14-10 on another ace, and the Panthers maintained their advantage and forced a Lovell timeout after a Kodee Asay kill to make it 21-15.

“We were minimizing errors on our side, but also just playing aggressively and not playing scared,” Flitner said.

An illegal lift by the Bulldogs ended the set as Powell won 25-19.

In the third set the Panthers came out to finish the match quickly, with Floy leading the way early and forcing a Lovell timeout with Powell up 10-2.

Holcomb extended it to double digits at 18-7, and Lovell called its final timeout at 20-7.

Powell finished the match with a 25-13 win to complete the sweep.

“It makes me feel a lot better moving forward into regionals,” Flitner said. “I think we’ve worked a lot on our mental game throughout the year and making sure we’re playing consistently on our end and not dropping down and playing to the other team’s level or feeling secure in the number of sets that we’ve won,” Flitner said. “We’re really trying to keep the pace on our side and seeing if we can set that through the entire match as our goal.”

    

HOME REGIONALS

Heading into the postseason the Panthers will have home court advantage, as the 3A West will converge on Powell for the 3A West Regional tournament on Friday and Saturday.

Flitner thinks the distractions that come with playing at home may actually help.

“I think some distraction is good,” Flitner said. “I don’t want the girls to put too much pressure on themselves by the time we get to regionals. I know that going to state is really important, and that’s been a goal of theirs all season, but I think that when we put too much pressure on ourselves, we do start to play that tentative game … We need to be working on the mental things but also focus on having fun, because that’s when we play best.”

Powell will be the No. 2 seed, taking on a familiar face in the No. 7 seeded Worland Warriors (12-17 overall, 3-7 3A West) for the fourth time this season.

The Panthers have only lost two sets to Worland while going 3-0 in the season series, recently sweeping the Warriors on the road.

Despite the wins, Flitner feels her team will be focused on winning the initial match so that they do not dig themselves into a hole and require two wins on Saturday to advance to state.

“We’re taking it one game at a time, and we’ve seen this team before, so we’ll watch film and work on things that we have seen when we’ve played Worland before,” Flitner said. “We’re definitely not looking past them. They’re a solid team and I think that they could have ended up in a variety of places in terms of seeding because a lot of teams were pretty close … It’s pretty crucial for us [to get that first win]. I would say getting that first win will help us get momentum into the next game. It also takes a little bit of pressure off.”

Tournament play begins at 10 a.m. on Friday and 9 a.m. on Saturday at Powell High School.

If Powell wins, it will advance to the semifinal at 5:30 p.m. against the winner of the Bridger Valley battle between No. 3 seeded Lyman (17-15 overall, 6-4 3A West) and No. 6 seeded Mountain View (18-15, 3-7 3A West).

If Powell loses, it will face the loser of that contest in a loser out game at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday. Teams need two wins to guarantee a berth to the state tournament in Casper next weekend.

The Panthers are the defending champions of the 3A West Regional tournament.

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