LSRV rattles their way to State

The Little Snake River Valley (LSRV) Lady Rattlers have officially punched their ticket to the 1A State Volleyball Championship. Entering as the No. 2 West Seed, the Lady Rattlers went 2-1 over the weekend as they competed in the 1A West Regional Tournament in Lander. LSRV fought through the Ten Sleep Lady Pioneers and the Saratoga Lady Panthers before facing the Cokeville Lady Panthers in the Championship Round of the regional tournament.

Lady Rattlers vs. Lady Pioneers

The Lady Rattlers entered the regional tournament as the No. 1 seed in the 1A Southwest and began their weekend with a match against the No. 4 seed in the 1A Northwest. While LSRV had a season record of 25-5-2 and a conference record of 7-1, the Lady Pioneers were 1-12 for their season and 0-3 in conference play.The differences between the Southwest and the Northwest was clear, as the Lady Rattlers sank their fangs into Ten Sleep across all three sets. In the 1st set, LSRV was victorious with a score of 25-4, and followed it up in the 2nd and 3rd set with scores of 25-8 and 25-7, respectively.

Lady Rattlers vs. Lady Panthers

Following their win over the Lady Pioneers, LSRV faced off against Saratoga. Despite close scoring between the two teams, who had faced-off twice in the regular season, the Lady Rattlers would ultimately win all three sets. In the 1st set, LSRV led 25-16 while the 2nd and 3rd sets were much closer with scores of 25-22 and 25-23.

Kinlie Montgomery led the Lady Rattlers in attacking the net with 16 kills against Saratoga and was followed by Destre Kaisler with 7 kills and Skylynn Ready with 6 kills. In serving, Kylie Evans carried the majority of the team total of 6 aces with 4 aces of her own and was followed by Ready and Catrina Habel with 1 ace each.

Defensively, Evans led with 23 digs against the Lady Panthers and was followed by Kaisler with 7 digs and Ready with 6 digs.

Lady Rattlers vs. Lady Panthers

Moving onto the Championship Round, LSRV went from facing one team of Lady Panthers to another as they played Cokeville. During the regular season, the two teams had gone 1-1 with the Lady Panthers securing a win in September and LSRV taking a win of their own earlier in October. The Lady Rattlers would go five sets with Cokeville as the two fought for the No. 1 West placing.

The first two sets went to the Lady Panthers as they went 25-16 and 25-17 over LSRV. In the 3rd and 4th set, the Lady Rattlers would answer back to win 25-19 and 25-21. In the 5th and final set, however, the match would go to Cokeville with a slim 3 point lead of 15-12.

Montgomery and Ready equally attacked the net with a total of 15 kills each. Katelynn Englehart followed with 5 kills and Kaisler and Cashley Criswell each had 3 kills. The Lady Rattlers served a combined 4 aces against Cokeville with 2 aces coming from Evans and 1 ace each coming from Englehart and Catrina Habel. Evans also had a total of 36 digs and was followed by Ready with 17 digs and Regina Herrera with 16 digs.

The Little Snake River Valley Lady Rattlers will begin the 1A State Championship Tournament facing the No. 3 East Kaycee Lady Buckaroos at 4:30 p.m. on November 4 at the Ford Wyoming Center in Casper.