By Logan McCullough
Despite enduring effort, the Lehman Lady Lobos volleyball team fell to the Vista Ridge Lady Rangers Tuesday night in straight sets, 25-22, 25-10, 25-17.
The first set was the most competitive and contentious of the three with Vista Ridge appearing lackadaisical to start while conversely, Lehman was playing with maximum energy.
“It’s a long drive over here,” said Vista Ridge head coach Holly Lamb. “It’s hot, and I think a lot of that attributes to why we might have started a little slower. It’s a drive, you sit for a while and it took a little while to get our motors going. So that’s probably why we started slow.”
When asked about the energy both on the court and on the bench, Lady Lobo’s head coach Kathryn Legh-Page preaches having excitement for the game to her players, or “staying hype” as the team puts it.
“If you have energy on the bench, it will transfer to the court. And if you have energy on the court it will transfer to the score,” Legh-Page said.
Although they were out-hustled, the Lady Rangers secured the first set, 25-22.
The questions going into set two were can Lehman maintain such a high level of energy, and can Vista Ridge find a source of energy at all.
These questions were quickly answered as Vista Ridge jumped out to an early 20-6 lead, and eventually winning by a score of 25-10.
The surge of energy the Lady Rangers needed came through impressive showings from their defense.
“Our defense has done a really good job this year of keeping us in games,” Lamb said. “It seems to really get us back into our system. I’m really proud of the way our defense comes together and keeps us in long rallies.”
Momentum in the third set originally belonged to Lehman. After expending all the energy they had, the Lobos managed to take an 11-10 lead. However this lead was brief, as the change seemingly woke Vista Ridge up as they immediately matched Lehman’s energy and let their talent do the rest, closing the set on a 14-6 run, winning 25-17.
Although any loss is disheartening, Legh-Page was proud of her team and remained confident for the future.
“We’ve come a long way,” said Legh-Page. “There’s literally nothing negative I can say. Comparing where we were with this team in the first round, sometimes the score doesn’t show it, but our hustle, our demeanor, it’s just completely different. So their improvement is positive.”
The Lehman Lady Lobos are back in action Friday night as they take on the state ranked (19) Westlake Chaparrals.
