Lady Tigers claw their way into regionals

It was a tough end to the regular volleyball season for the Encampment Lady Tigers as they were dealt two losses on Thursday and Saturday while on the road.

On October 19, the Lady Tigers were hosted by the Rock River Lady Longhorns where they went 1-3. Two days later, on October 21, they were hosted by the Little Snake River Valley (LSRV) Lady Rattlers where they fell in three sets. Despite those losses, Head Coach Janice Peterson felt positive about how the girls played.

“Overall, the girls played really well against both Rock River and LSRV,” said Peterson.

In the matchup against Rock River, the Lady Tigers sunk their claws in for a 25-20 win in the first set. In the second set, the Lady Longhorns came back to win 22-25.

“We lost some of our momentum and lost the final two,” said Peterson. “The girls played together really well after a lineup glitch and responded well to some adversity early.”

With the first set going to Encampment 25-20 and the second set going to Rock River 22-25, the final two sets were 18-25 and 14-25 in favor of the Lady Longhorns.

“Against LSRV, we lost in three but competed with the number one 1A ranked team in the state,” said Peterson. “We had more unforced errors than we had been having and that made it tough to recover from against a strong team.”

Scoring across the three sets was 14-25, 15-25, 17-25.

Following their final week in the regular season, the Encampment Lady Tigers are 8-9 for the season and 1-7 in conference play. Their one conference win, against the Farson-Eden Lady Pronghorns, earned them a pigtail play-in against Farson-Eden to determine who would take the No. 4 seed for the Southwest at the 1A Regional Tournament.

Encampment faced the Lady Pronghorns on Monday evening where they punched their ticket to regionals as they downed Farson-Eden in three sets 29-27, 25-14 and 25-18. The Encampment Lady Tigers will take on the No. 1 ranked Riverside Lady Rebels at 11:30 a.m. on October 27 in Riverton.