Lady Cat's Struggles Continue, Drop Three Matches
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Lady Cat senior ,Aniya Longknife digs up a ball in Harlem's home finale Saturday afternoon against the Wolf Point Wolves.
The Harlem Wildcats continue to play well at times but still struggle to close out sets late. Harlem struggled on the road against the Malta M-ettes last Tuesday and then again on Thursday in Whitewater against the North Country Mavericks losing both matches in straight sets. Saturday, they won their first set in five matches against the visiting Wolf Point Wolves but fell 3-1 in the match.
Tuesday in Malta things started off promising for the Lady Cats. Senior Mylah Rider found an empty spot in the back of the Malta defense for a 16-13 advantage in set number one. Junior, Emma Billmayer later slammed home a big Kill for a 22-19 Harlem advantage, but Malta turned the tables down the stretch to win the first set 26-24.
Harlem struggled to recover in set number two getting off to a slow start. Billmayer scored a point off a couple M-ettes to keep Harlem close at 8-11 but Malta took set two 25-12. The M-ettes closed out the Lady Cats in set three with a 25-17 win to complete the sweep.
Thursday in Whitewater the Lady Cats again found it difficult to score points consistently and dropped the first set to North Country 25-17. The Mavericks went on to take set two 25-19 and set three 25-16 to hand Harlem its fourth straight sweep.
Harlem senior, Mylah Rider slams home a Kill Tuesday night in Malta versus the M-ettes. The Lady Cats will conclude the regular season this Saturday in Poplar and then turn their attention to the District 2B Tournament to be played October 28-29 with the top four teams advancing to the Northern B Divisional the following week in Choteau.
Saturday at home against Wolf Point the Lady Cats finally broke through and earned a hard fought 25-23 opening set win over the Wolves. Despite the good start Harlem soon experienced the same set of close calls, near misses and bad breaks that have plagued them the past few weeks. Wolf Point took set two 25-17, set three 25-16 and defeated Harlem in the fourth set 25-20 to earn the 3-1 match win.
Head Coach, Kim Faulkinberry addressed her teams struggles, "We played some great volleyball at times. I really think we were a bit tired. We have played five matches in the last ten days, and it was difficult to get any rhythm at practice when it was always pregame."
Faulkinberry followed by saying, "We have five practices this week before we go to Poplar on Saturday for our last conference match-up. We will have a chance to work on a few things and get healed up a bit before Districts."
The Lady Cats will be in Poplar this Saturday to take on the Indians in the regular season finale. They will then turn their attention to the District 2B Tournament to be played in Poplar, October 28-29.
