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(ALEX HAVARDANSKY | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Aubree Clayton, left, and Kinzee Forbus, right, go up for a block Tuesday, Sept. 16, against the Gold-Burg Lady Bears. Both Clayton and Forbus shined in the Ladycats dominant three-set win. -
(ALEX HAVARDANSKY | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Camren Mallory sets a ball for the Ladycats in their match Tuesday, Sept. 16, against the Gold-Burg Lady Bears. Mallory is a veteran leader on the team as a junior. -
(ALEX HAVARDANSKY | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Kinzee Forbus throws the ball up for a serve Tuesday, Sept. 16, against the Gold-Burg Lady Bears. Forbus was effective at the service line in the Ladycats three-set win. -
(ALEX HAVARDANSKY | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Kenzie King goes up for a kill Tuesday, Sept. 16, against the Gold-Burg Lady Bears. King is one of three juniors on the Ladycats this season.
It was a quick day of work for the Newcastle Ladycats as they decimated the Gold-Burg Lady Bears in three sets.
This was a match that head coach Ashley Archer credits to the team’s heightened intensity over the last several weeks.
“We’ve been talking a lot about the teams that we’re going to see in district and hopefully playoffs, and we’ve been competing well against teams that are probably better than us,” Archer said. “This is what we would see in the first round of the playoffs, so we need to take care of business.”
That’s exactly what they did right from the first serve of set one. Emma Hawkins started things off for the team with a kill to make it 1-0 Ladycats. This was a lead the team never surrendered.
Kinzee Forbus rallied off of this with multiple points to make it a 5-0 game. This was due in part to back-to-back aces as well as a kill from senior Sophie Terrell. That would become a recurring trend throughout the contest for Terrell.
After picking up a 10-1 lead with a point on a tipped ball from Kenzie King, Terrell followed this up with two straight kills on the left side of the net as well as center net.
Aubree Clayton followed this up with a kill of her own to force Gold-Burg into a timeout with Newcastle holding a 13-3 lead.
Out of the timeout, Forbus snuck a ball just inside the back right corner of the Lady Bears’ defensive zone for a kill to make it 15-5.
Later in the frame, after Terrell picked up another kill at center net to make it 22-8, Hawkins earned critical points at the service line to help the Ladycats pick up a 25-8 set one win.
Set two started much the same way, with the team jumping out to a 5-1 lead. However, the Lady Bears did show some fight in this set. Archer said a trend she noticed was that the team’s weak set in matches was set two, and that they would have to learn to keep composure in those tough moments.
That’s exactly what the team accomplished as they eventually gave themselves a 14-8 cushion and jumped out to a 25-15 set two victory, after an ace from King ended it.
Set three was much of the same story. While the start of the set was closer, the team remained aggressive on offense and players like Flor Carranza, Kinsey Hawkins and Forbus put in work at the service line to end things with a 25-12 three-set win.
After playing against Knox City Saturday, Sept. 20, the Ladycats pick things up Tuesday, Sept. 23, on the road against Seymour at 5 p.m.
