Lady 'Cats upend Lynchburg-Clay in match sweep

MOWRYSTOWN — The Lynchburg-Clay Lady Mustangs needed one win to clinch no less than a share of the Division I Southern Hills Athletic Conference championship. That will have to wait until another day.

The Whiteoak Lady Wildcats had other plans on Tuesday night, and that included defending their home court in their final regular-season home match at WHS. That's exactly what they did, sweeping their visiting rivals in three-straight games.

WHS, who are in Division II of the conference, won the SHAC match by scores of 26-24, 25-20 and 25-11 to seal the win, moving them to 7-12 overall and 5-7 in the SHAC. For LC, they have 10 overall wins and hold a SHAC record of 6-5 with one conference match remaining vs. Ripley.

For the Lady 'Cats, they celebrated their seniors before the match, with Hayley Nace, Emma Wardlow, Morgan Knoblauch and Kayla Smallwood getting applause for their time with the program, but that wouldn't be the last time the home crowd cheered them on.

"All of our seniors got to start the match off, and I was pleased with their play at the beginning," WHS head coach Katie Pollard said.

The first game had the feeling it was going to be dominated by WHS, and it was for a strong portion of it as they led 6-1 at one point, followed with a 15-4 lead with help from Nace, Smallwood and Lexi Jones as they provided kills and solid serves in that time frame of the first game.

Jones finished the night with 18 digs, seven blocks and five kills.

"Lexi rocked it (Tuesday) and has been working hard," Pollard said. "She's found her hitting and played awesome."

LC eventually rallied in the first game to tie the score at 17 with serves from Hannah Magie, along with points by Shelby Marshall, Kylie Camp and MaKayla Creed, as Creed made it a three-point game at 16-13 with her serving.

The first game was eventually tied at the aforementioned 17 points with an ace by Magie. WHS regained a one-point lead, but it didn't last with Tylar Griffith tipping the ball over the net.

The score was tied again at 20, 21 and 23 until the Lady 'Cats took the lead for good by a two-point margin at 26-24.

In the second game, WHS trailed for a majority of the game, with LC holding onto the lead from the first point scored all the way until the game was tied at 16, as WHS rallied to go from trailing 10-4 at one point to the tied score.

The second game was tied three times altogether, with the final time being 18-18. From there, WHS and the Lady Mustangs continued to battle in their SHAC match, but WHS was too strong at the end of the game with Wardlow and Jones controlling the tempo with their final points of the game. Jones ended game two with a 25-20 score with an aggressive leaping hit to the LC side of the court.

Wardlow led WHS with nine kills.

Game three was all Whiteoak, leading 5-0 to start things off, followed with leads of 10-3, 14-3, 18-5 and eventually the win at 25-11.

In the third game, WHS had MaKayla Risner (who totaled 16 assists) come up with some solid serves, and Hannah Maynard had a nice play at the front of the net. Wardlow showed her ability to play different styles in the third game, with one point coming off a very aggressive kill play, followed up shortly by pushing the ball calmly over the net for a point.

Morgan Knoblauch scored consecutive points in the third game, while Macy Knoblauch had three aces in a row to push, at the time, the Lady 'Cats’ lead to 18-5.

WHS wraps up their regular season on Thursday, with a SHAC road match at Fairfield. The Lady 'Cats will host a sectional match on Monday vs. Sciotoville East, while the Lady Mustangs will travel to Piketon next Saturday (Oct. 24) in tournament play.