Lady Blues, Ladycats continue volleyball summer league

Lady Blues, Ladycats continue volleyball summer league News Staff Fri, 06/14/2024 - 9:10 am

• (TC GORDON | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Graham’s Lillian Noble makes a play on a ball near the net to save it for her team during one of the Lady Blues’ summer league volleyball games Monday, June 10.
• (TC GORDON | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Newcastle’s Sophie Terrell tosses the ball in the air and prepares to serve it during the Ladycats’ first game Monday, June 10 of a volleyball summer league.

TC Gordon sports@grahamleader.com

Week two of four is complete of the volleyball summer league hosted at Graham High School as the Lady Blues and Newcastle Ladycats continue to gain valuable experience before the upcoming school year.

As with summer leagues for other sports, though the competition aspect is real, teams play with modified rules. This is primarily an opportunity for both returning and incoming players to begin to gel with their teammates as everyone works towards the games that matter in the fall.

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 will exist. Teams can continue to play if one side is up by 20 or more, but the score won’t be kept past that point.

All of Graham and Newcastle’s teams saw time on the courts as returning and new players worked together in preparation for the fall season which begins in just a few months.

Teams played multiple games but this write-up focuses primarily on the Lady Blues and Ladycats’ first varsity games of the evening.

Lady Blues v. Mineral Wells, (W) 36-24

It took some time but the Lady Blues pulled away in the second half of the game to claim a big win over the Lady Rams.

Graham took a quick 2-0 lead with soft kills from Kaden Atwood and Camden Thorne. A couple points later, Lillian Noble made her presence felt after missing last week with a powerful kill to the back corner to put the team up 3-2.

Braylee Mayes contributed to the scoring to put the team up 5-4 and then Noble rattled off three straight service aces. Mayes had a block for a point and the Lady Blues quickly led 9-4.

Volleyball is often described as a game of runs and Mineral Wells wasn’t going away. The Lady Rams fought back into the game through a combination of kills and Lady Blues errors, eventually taking a 15-14 lead over Graham.

The Lady Blues tied things back up at 16-16 and retook the lead on a soft shot by Noble over the net that found no-man’s land. Graham took a 17-16 lead and wouldn’t trail again for the rest of the game.

Graham’s varsity girls continued to score in a variety of ways as their lead slowly increased throughout the remaining minutes. The Lady Rams committed more errors on their end as the deficit grew bigger and a couple kills from Annemarie McHenry and Noble closed out the game as the Lady Blues won 36-24.

Ladycats v. Graford, (L) 35-28

Throughout this game the Ladycats and Lady Rabbits played evenly until the final minutes when Graford began to pull away.
Newcastle’s varsity team played in one of the first games of the evening and went back and forth with Graford throughout most of the 25-minute game. But the Lady Rabbits were the first to pull away at the start.

Graford opened up the game with an 8-4 lead, primarily thanks to a few service aces and Newcastle errors. But the Ladycats found a way to get things cooking and pulled back even 8-8 punctuated by a strong kill from Sophie Terrell.

Midway through the game, Graford slowly pulled away, and despite Newcastle’s best efforts, they weren’t able to fully get back into it. The Ladycats trailed only 11-10 before the Lady Rabbits ran off five consecutive points to build a 16-10 lead.

Although Newcastle’s girls fought to get close led by more kills from Terrell and a couple aces from Emma Hawkins and Aubee Clayton, they couldn’t close the gap Graford had built. Newcastle’s biggest deficit came when the Lady Rabbits went up 31-21, and the Ladycats eventually fell 35-28.

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