Lady Tigers are conference champs

It is no secret that the Encampment Lady Tigers (5-0 conference19-1 overall) have a great support group in the town of Encampment. It should be no surprise when the boys lined up to have their chests painted with letters to spell out Tiger's Den in the last conference game of the season to show their support.

It worked.

The Lady Tigers went on to a win in three sets (25-17, 25-19, 25-23) with their most competitive county and conference foe, the Little Snake River Valley (LSRV) Lady Rattlers (2-2, 14-5) to take the No. 1 seed at regionals in two weeks.

While the girls are happy to have the No. 1 seed, they are not overlooking anyone, head coach Robin O'Leary said.

"We are still taking it one game at a time," O'Leary said.

The win against LSRV came the day after another conference win (25-14, 27-25, 25-12) against Farson/Eden Lady Pronghorns (0-4, 7-12).

The wins this past weekend were more impressive because one of the varsity players was out with a concussion. Cassidy Little suffered a concussion at the Wind River Tournament and is unable to return for a five-day protocol until she is symptom free for 24 hours. That has not happened yet.

O'Leary learned of the concussion Tuesday night after practice, which gave her two days to get Little's replacements ready for the final two conference games.

Cheyanne Jordan filled the position in the front row and Kaylyn Herring played the back row.

O'Leary said she was a little nervous going in against the Lady Rattlers, but she had faith in the bench. "We are pretty fortunate to have a strong bench," O'Leary said.

With two days of practice with the varsity team under their belt, Jordan and Herring kept pace with the varsity players.

Jordan had 13 serves and one kill in the Pronghorn game and had 11 serves in the Rattlers game. Jordan also had two kills in Farson/Eden and one kill at home against LSRV.

The team's serve/receive was outstanding, O'Leary said, which gave allowed the team all the options for hitting.

Against Farson/Eden, Hailey Barkhurst had 9 kills, while McKenzie Powell had eight kills. Alyssa Barkhurst had seven kills, while the normal power house Paige Powell came away with seven kills.

P. Powell stepped up her kills in the LSRV game with an impressive 14 kills, with H. Barkhurst having 10 kills. M. Powell had eight kills and A. Barkhurst came away with seven kills.

Despite a sprained wrist, Sierra Loftice had an impressive game, delivering 26 successful serves with seven aces against Farson/Eden and 17 serves with three aces against LSRV.

The only thing that will heal the wrist is rest, O'Leary said, but Loftice has chosen to go forward with her play and rest after the season is over.

"She is toughing is out," O'Leary said.

When Loftice was up for the serve, the Lady Tigers were down by 5 points in the third set. Despite LSRV calling two time outs, Loftice was able to keep going serving between the front and back rows of the LSRV defense. "Our defense helped keep the serve and Sierra closed the game for us," O'Leary said.

O'Leary said she appreciated the "super-great crowd" that showed their support at the game. She was proud of their behavior as they were respectful toward LSRV's players during the game.

The Lady Tigers have one game left in the post-season, a non-conference game against Walden at 1 p.m. Saturday in the Encampment gym.