Wildcats closing in on districts

by Diane Stamm

Grant tribune-sentinel

The adage is, it’s never easy to beat a team three times. The Wallace volleyball team needed to beat Paxton for a fifth time this season to guarantee a berth in this weekend’s district finals.

The Wildcats sat at eighth in the point standings after Monday night’s win over Hitchcock County.

With the 12 subdistrict winners and the next four highest seeds moving on to districts, both Wallace and Paxton had plenty on the line in Tuesday’s game.

Full coverage will be available in next week’s paper.

After winning set one over Hitchcock County 25-12, Wallace let the Falcons come back and win the second set 23-25. The Wildcats trailed 20-24 but fell just short of sending the set to extra points. Wallace left no doubt in the third and fourth sets, winning 25-6, 25-9.

“The girls had a great offensive game collectively with 50 plus kills. Defensively we were not as good as we should have been. We are excited to be able to advance to the sub-district final game against Paxton,” Sauser said.

Finish fourth at RPAC

The Wildcats ended up fourth in the RPAC tournament after losses to Class D1’s top two teams, Cambridge and Maywood/Hayes Center.

Wallace took on MHC in Hayes Center Oct. 17. 

After being tied at 18-18 in the first set, Wallace lost to the Wolves 25-19. The Wildcats led the second set 13-11 before MHC took over. Wallace lost the set 18-25. The Wildcats fell behind early in the third set and couldn’t catch up, losing 11-25.

“The girls were able to compete and stay within reach during the first two sets against an experienced MHC team. The third set we lost too much momentum and weren’t able to finish,” Sauser said.

MHC would go on to beat Southwest the following night in the RPAC championship game.

Cambridge, Wallace’s first opponent of the season, was coming off only its second loss of the season the next night when the Wildcats took on the Trojans in the RPAC consolation game.

Wallace led 14-11 in the first set before losing 16-25, then never held the lead in the second set, a 17-25 loss. The third set was tied at 18-18, but the Wildcats took a 20-25 loss.

“The girls have improvedso much from the first time they played Cambridge at the beginning of the season. They stayed within reach all three sets.  It is exciting for the girls to be able to play in the last day of conference tournament and bring back a fourth place finish,” Sauser said.