Lady 'Cats win over Lady Lions on 'Volley for a Cure' night

MOWRYSTOWN — The Whiteoak Lady Wildcats controlled the pace of the game, winning on their Volley for a Cure night, Thursday, defeating the visiting Fairfield Lady Lions in three straight sets.

WHS held bake sales, silent auctions and other activities to raise money for breast cancer research, as WHS head coach Katie Pollard spoke about the importance of the event held at Whiteoak.

"This was our first Volley for a Cure in a couple years, and the girls asked me at the end of last school year when I took over as the coach if we could do this," Pollard said. "It was a lot of work by a lot of people, but we had some awesome donations.

"The seniors and juniors went out and got all kinds of donations from all over Adams, Brown and Highland counties, and I'm anxious to see how much we raised."

As for the volleyball match itself, the Lady 'Cats won it in the aforementioned three games by scores of 25-14, 25-19 and 25-17.

"We really needed to win this because we've been struggling lately," Pollard said. “We have been struggling with our serving, but the girls came out in the first match and were just pumped and ready to go.

"Our warmups were nice. We hit well in warmups, and you can always kind of tell when they are hitting well in warmups that it will be a good match. They just have to keep doing that all the time."

In game one, the Lady 'Cats began by scoring the first four points of the match with Morgan Knoblauch serving well during that scoring. Fairfield broke the streak as Ciara Knisley scored a point for the Lady Lions.

The first game continued with a kill by Whiteoak's Emma Wardlow, doubling up WHS over the visiting Lady Lions by an 8-4 score, and later Lexi Jones pushed the hosts ahead by a 10-4 score.

Later, three consecutive points off serves from Wardlow gave the Lady 'Cats a 17-6 advantage. FHS fought back with a point at the net from Casey Carter to make it a deficit of 19-11, but WHS was too strong, eventually winning the first game by an 11-point differential, with the game-winning point coming with a kill from Knoblauch.

Game two was tied twice early on, as Jones gave the Lady 'Cats a 9-3 advantage, and FHS answered with aces by Kami Magee. As the match progressed, FHS got to within two points of tying the score with Blake Adams having a powerful hit over the net, making the score 12-10 as WHS continued to lead.

WHS didn't trail for the rest of the second game with MaKayla Risner eventually pushing the Lady 'Cats ahead at 15-12, and Macy Knoblauch gave WHS a 23-15 lead.

The game-winning point for game two came as FHS serves the ball out of play.

WHS had trouble closing the third game out, but they eventually did with FHS going just over the net for the final 25-18 score. Getting to that point saw excellent play at the net by Jones and serves by Hannah Maynard, as the two combined to really give the Lady 'Cats the lead at 16-2 one point in the third game.

Wardlow and Jones later scored consecutive points to make it an 18-3 advantage for the hosts, and though FHS had late points, their rally wasn’t enough to surpass WHS.

"We had awesome net play from Lexi and Hannah, they were up there getting blocks," Pollard said. "Lexi for sure stepped up. She did it all, and our serves were much better (Thursday).

"Emma rocks it every time she serves, and Hannah is an amazing server. Morgan also served great once again. She hasn't missed many serves all year."