Volleyball summer league completes third week

Volleyball summer league completes third week News Staff Wed, 06/19/2024 - 3:57 pm

• (TC GORDON | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Two Lady Blues players jump at the net for a block attempt during the summer league Graham has hosted throughout the month of June. The Lady Blues defeated Breckenridge 37-17 in their first game of the evening Monday, June 17.
• (TC GORDON | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Graham junior Kaden Atwood bumps a ball into the air to set up one of her teammates during the Lady Blues’ summer league win over Breckenridge this past Monday, June 17.
• (TC GORDON | THE GRAHAM LEADER) The Graham Lady Blues huddle before the start of their first game of the evening Monday, June 17 in a volleyball summer league.

TC Gordon sports@grahamleader.com

Volleyball’s summer league crossed the midway point last week and completed the third week of competition for high school teams this past Monday, June 17.

Graham’s Lady Blues, Newcastle’s Ladycats and a host of other schools from around the area have been participating for weeks in friendly competitions as players work their way towards the upcoming fall volleyball season.

This past week, the Lady Blues took on the Breckenridge Lady Buckaroos in an exhibition game while the Ladycats faced one of the Mineral Wells Lady Rams teams. Graham earned a big win over Breckenridge while Newcastle struggled somewhat against Mineral Wells’ top team.

Each game is only 25 minutes in length with a running clock the entire time. There are no sets and the score continues to run up until time expires.

Officials keep time, score and lines as best they can and a 20-point mercy rule exists for games. Teams can continue to play if one side is up by 20 or more, but the score won’t be kept past that point.

Lady Blues v. Breckenridge

The summer has come along nicely for the Lady Blues when they took on the Lady Buckaroos in one of the first games of the evening. The two teams played close in the beginning before the Lady Blues pulled away for a 37-17 win.

Graham jumped out to a lead thanks to four straight points early on, highlighted by kills from Georgia Martin, Rylee Moore and Lillian Noble. The Lady Blues held a 7-2 lead before an error, Breckenridge ace and a few other miscues helped the Lady Buckaroos tie things up at 7-7.

Over the next several minutes, Graham went on a 15-0 run to push the team’s lead to 22-7 before Breckenridge used a soft hit and found a gap in the Lady Blues’ defense.

It wasn’t long before Graham went on a similar run highlighted by a string of three consecutive aces from Martin to make it 29-11. Over the final few minutes of the game, Noble had a kill, Braylee Mayes had a powerful block for a point and Camden Thorne recorded an ace as time expired, giving Graham the big win.

Ladycats v. Mineral Wells

Newcastle’s Ladycats met tough competition when they took on the Mineral Wells Lady Rams in their first game of the evening. The Ladycats battled all game but ultimately took a loss after the mercy rule went into effect and the official stopped keeping score.

Newcastle kept things close throughout the opening minutes of the game as the Ladycats held their own. They allowed multiple Mineral Wells errors while mixing in a couple of aces at the service line.

Aubree Clayton had one of the aces to tie the game at 6-6 early on. Mineral Wells then went on a scoring run with a combination of hard and soft kills for points. The Ladycats earned a few more points on Lady Rams, errors but Mineral Wells went on to take the win.

The summer league’s final games will take place Monday, June 24 beginning at 5 p.m. in the Graham High School gym.

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