Lady Herders look to steal the southeast with late season push

 

After a slow start to the season, the Lady Herders are in prime position to steal away the top-seed in their quadrant with a strong final week of the regular season. 

The Glenrock girls have four of their last six after falling to Pine Bluffs Sept. 19, the current one-seed in the 2A Southeast, to bring their record to 7-9, with a 2-1 conference record.

The Hornets have struggled to a 4-11 record, but have yet to lose in the southeast, defeating Lusk twice to go along with the win over Glenrock.

The good news for Glenrock is that they get a revenge match with Pine Bluffs Oct. 24 for their final match of the regular season, and if they can find a way to win they’ll be the number one seed and will have the privilege of hosting their quad tournament to determine seedings for the regional tournament.

“I think  it’s important to get home court because the girls really feed off the energy of our crowd,” head coach Meghan Anderson said. “It really helps them get going and stay up and not lose that intensity.”

The first match was a tight affair, with three of the four sets being decided by four points or less.

“We’ve been talking about how we want to finish the season strong this week but specifically the Pines Bluff game,” Anderson said. “They have a pretty explosive hitter so we’re making sure we know where she is at all times.

“We also need to eliminate our errors. The first time we played them we had a lot of hitting errors, so just making sure we stay mentally in the game.”

The team has shown growth in its matches following that loss, being forced to try different players in different positions due to some nagging injuries with its starters.

Anderson said she will know sometime during the final week of the season whether or not she will be able to play Emma Wieser and Kira Hill in the playoffs

Hill has missed the past two weeks and Wieser has been out for a week.

“We’ve been pulling up underclassman to fill those spots and relying on the other four starters to be aggresive and keep things flowing in the right direction for us,” Anderson said.”

The Lady Herders swept Lusk in their last match, winning the sets 25-18, 25-22 and 25-12. 

Ann-Marie Young, Skylar Harford and Adelaide Williams led the way scoring with 10, six and five kills a piece.

Alyssa Collier continued to set up her teammates as she has all season, racking up 24 assists.

Glenrock hosts Southeast for its last home game of the season Oct. 23 at 5 p.m., and the match with Pine Bluffs begins at 3 p.m.