Photo: Anna Lott (7) and Kaya Coleman (8) of Northwest set a block in Monday’s match against Pearl River at Senatobia. (Bob Bakken/desotocountynews.com)
Sep 23, 2024- Northwest Mississippi Community College’s Lady Ranger volleyball team is on quite a roll. Led by fifth-year coach Allison Burchyett, the Lady Rangers won its eighth-straight match in its Mississippi Association of Community College Conference season opener Monday night. The Lady Rangers defeated rival Pearl River 3-1 at Howard Coliseum to improve to 12-6 for the season. Set scores in the match were 25-18, 25-22, 18-25, and 25-19.
“We started strong, had a few little moments there, but we weathered the storms, whether it was serving storms, hitting errors, serving errors or service receive errors,” Burchyett said. “They stuck it out and got a big win.”
Northwest opened the first set with an 11-4 lead after a kill by freshman outside hitter Maddie Smith. The seven-point lead became nine at 20-11 following an ace serve by former Northpoint Christian School libero Sailor Cole. The Wildcats would rally but a kill from Claire Roberts clinched the set at 25-18.
It continued in the second set when Northwest ran out to a 3-0 lead, which became 7-3 when Smith slammed a kill. After the Lady Rangers posted a 15-10 lead, Pearl River answered with three straight points to force a Northwest timeout. A kill from Anna Lott brought the margin back to five at 20-15, and aided by Wildcat errors, the Lady Rangers took the set 25-22.
The Wildcats found their game in the third set, taking a 9-6 lead, but Northwest answered to get to 10-10 with a pair of aces from Aven Mathis.
Pearl River started to pull away from 14-14 and ran off five straight points for a 19-14 lead. A Northwest net violation saw the margin grow to 22-15 and Burchyett called a time out at 23-15 Pearl River. The Wildcats went on from there for a 25-18 set victory.
“They had the momentum and we gave some of the momentum away,” Burchyett said about her team’s play in the third set. “I was proud of the way we battled back at the end of the set and got the momentum back for the fourth set.”
The Lady Rangers went off to a 6-2 lead in the fourth set and it was 11-4 after a kill from sophomore Rachel Stegall. Later in the set, an attack error from the Wildcats gave Northwest a 20-12 lead. Again, Pearl River mounted a comeback from get within 22-19 but the three final points finished off the Wildcats for a 25-19 Northwest win and the match.
That means eight straight victories now for Northwest ahead of a Wednesday home match in Senatobia against Jones College.
“Anytime you get into the conference or the end of September you want to be peaking,” Burchyett said. “You don’t want to be peaking too early or peak too late. We’re on the incline where we want to go to peak at the right time.”
