Proximity can breed familiarity, and that familiarity was on full display with the Pilot Point Lady Cats volleyball team battling the Tioga Lady Bulldogs on Aug. 14 at the Pilot Point High School gym, with the Lady Bulldogs sweeping their neighbors three sets to none.
The Lady Bulldogs jumped out to an early lead in the first set, but the Lady Cats found their footing and gave the opposition everything they wanted, with each of the match’s final two sets coming down to match point.
Tioga’s new head volleyball coach, Trevin Robinson, spoke highly of how the Lady Bulldogs weathered the scrappy Lady Cats.
“We’ve done a really good job buying into the culture,” Robinson said. “Our biggest thing this year has been effort and attitude, and we’ve really been getting on board with that. We haven’t had a lot of time to really focus on the skills, so we’ve just been really fighting through it, but the culture is going to win you games at the end of the day, and they’ve done a phenomenal job.”
The Lady Bulldogs stormed out of the gate, scoring seven unanswered points before the Lady Cats got their first and found themselves up 18-9 near the end of the first set.
Pilot Point fought back, but Tioga eventually took the first set 25-19.
The second set was much more hotly contested, with the two squads trading scoring runs until the score was tied at 24.
The two teams went on a series of volleys before Tioga was able to dig out the last two points to win the set.
The Lady Cats found themselves on top in the third and final set, but the Lady Bulldogs were able to recover in the end, winning the set 25-23.
Robinson highlighted the Bulldogs’ energy and the performance of middle hitter Kennedy Slay.
“The energy has been phenomenal, and if you go back and look at the stats, our middle, Kennedy Slay, is hitting a little over .500 on the year so far,” he said. “A typical good average in baseball is .300, and in volleyball it’s the same way, and she’s over 500. That’s a really high level, [and] that means 50% of the time she’s getting a kill when we set to her, so she’s been somebody we can rely on.”
Slay credited her hot start to the season to playing volleyball during the UIL offseason and said she believes her production helps her team play with more confidence.
“I played club [volleyball] this last season, and that has definitely helped because I’m constantly in volleyball mode,” she said. “… The game is more muscle memory now because my body knows how to handle all the different sets, and I think that gives my teammates comfort in knowing they can depend on me getting a point if we’re in a slump.”
Another of the Lady Bulldogs team leaders, junior outside hitter Kyndall Whitley, echoed her coach’s sentiments about the importance of the team’s mentality.
“It helps us stay together as a team,” she said. “… This year, we have so much better chemistry and better attitudes towards each other, and it affected us as a team last year, but we’re working it this season, and it’s helped us in a positive way.”
Despite the loss, Pilot Point’s head volleyball coach Jessica Ledbetter said she was happy with the resilience the Lady Cats displayed.
“Overall, it was a really strong performance, and that’s what I’m looking for from them,” she said. “The only thing is in set 1 and set 2, we started a little late. We’ve talked about how we can’t start at a seven- or eightpoint deficit and then decide to play, but I think they rallied back well in each set and made it a very competitive game. We’ve got some things we’re going to work on cleaning up so we can close those gaps and pull out a W, but overall, I was proud of them.”
Ledbetter spoke highly of the effort from the Lady Cats’ new starting libero.
“She was all over the fourth floor for us tonight— she got our MVP of the game award, and she was diving for everything,” she said. When we talk about being ‘all in’ [and] sacrifi cing your body for a ball, that was Ava tonight.”
Ledbetter also highlighted the performances of the team’s middle blockers, Alliyah Smith and McKayla Rushing, and setter Darbi Smalskas.
“Aaliyah and Michaela, who are both juniors, were doing really good at defending the middle,” she said. “They came up really big in some key plays for us, helping us out on defense, and of course, our setter, Darbi, was very smart with her sets and very tactical about what she was doing with the ball.”
Ledbetter said her postgame message to the team focused on learning from the experience and continuing to improve.
“I told them, ‘Overall, you played a great game, but we can’t start slow,’” she said. “Passing and serving wins games, and we know that, and they know that we’re going to continue to drill that home so we can be the team that I know they’re capable of being.”
The Lady Bulldogs followed their win over Pilot Point with multiple wins during their tournament hosted in Tioga on Saturday and defeated Callisburg three sets to none Tuesday.
The Lady Cats also participated in Tioga’s tournament, collecting multiple wins before losing to the Lake Worth Lady Bullfrogs three sets to one Tuesday.
Tioga was scheduled to hit the road for the Fort Worth ISD Tournament on Thursday, Friday and Saturday before a matchup with S&S Consolidated at 6 p.m. Tuesday in Tioga.
Pilot Point was scheduled to take part in the Hwy 75 Tournament hosted in Denison and Sherman Thursday, Friday and Saturday before they travel to Pottsboro for a game with the Lady Cardinals at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.
