The College Heights Christian Cougars prevailed in a tight first set and then ran out to big leads in the second and third sets to come away with a 3-0 win (27-25, 25-18, 25-8) on Thursday against their Ozark 7 Conference and district rival McAuley Catholic.
College Heights senior Addie Lawrence made her return to the court after being out for the previous five matches dating back to Sept. 26 against Golden City.
“We didn’t know until yesterday, so she hadn’t touched a volleyball, other than it rolling to her on the bench, in 12 days,” College Heights coach Mary Colin said. “Just the basic chemistry. Our lineup changed again without us practicing with it, similar to when she was out, and we went to a new lineup. Honestly, the whole team responded from when she went out to stepping into new positions and new chemistry to today stepping back into our old spots and picking up where we left off. I was really proud of them.
“It took the team to get a minute into their rhythm. It took me a minute to get into my coaching rhythm. At one of those early timeouts, we talked about their rhythm and my rhythm and then they started to sync after that.”
College Heights and McAuley Catholic traded scoring runs in an exciting first set, and each team had set points until the Cougars finished out the set 27-25 with the last three points.
College Heights built a 23-13 lead in the second and the Cougars provided themselves plenty of room on the scoreboard to withstand a run of five unanswered points by the Warriors.
College Heights scored the first nine and the final five points during a dominant third set.
Lauren Ukena served three straight aces during that 9-0 start and she closed out the match with a kill off a block.
“She’s an all-around player,” Colin said. “She has been for two years now. She’s an outside hitter, she’s primary passer on serve receive, and she serves and digs. She’s so fun to watch. She’s a very, very smart player. She’s going up against Lily (Black) at the net, she would cross course and go down the line or she would go right through the block. Every now and then, she’ll get trapped because she’ll go against someone (a lot taller) because she’s a shorter volleyball player. Her serve was on fire (Thursday). It was moving.”
College Heights improved to 18-6-1 overall and 3-1 Ozark 7, and the Cougars return home on Tuesday for their home finale against Purdy.
McAuley Catholic dropped to 18-12-2 overall and the Warriors return to action on Monday at home against Providence Academy (Arkansas).
“I was really proud of our play the first set especially because we switched up our lineup Wednesday,” McAuley Catholic coach Sarah Nangle said. “We ran a 6-2 all season with two setters, and we changed to one setter. We only had one practice for our new lineup and our new rotations. We’ve got players playing different spots again, and so I thought they did a great job that first set. They worked well together, they were fired up, and came up just short.
“In the second, I was proud that we rallied back. Our goal is always and try to score 18 points if we’re going to not win. Obviously, we didn’t do that in the third. We definitely lost track of fundamentals, moving our feet and passing the ball. Maddy Colin did a great job serving against us and being very, very aggressive.
“It was still a fun night of volleyball, and it’s not the end of our season. We still have a couple more home games and a couple more away games that we’re going to fight for, and we still have districts. We have time to improve and see what we can do better.”
Lawrence finished with 14 kills, while Ukena had 18 service points, eight of which were aces, and six kills. Maddy Colin had 30 assists, while Ava Masena finished with 10 digs.
Kloee Williamson led the Warriors with seven kills, Lily Black distributed 14 assists, JoJo Wheeler made eight digs, and Avery Gardner served five aces in the loss Thursday.
