Story and Photos by Rusty Ellis
The Clarkrange Lady Buffaloes remained unbeaten in district play with their 3-0 win over Monterey on the road on Monday night.
The game started off perfectly for the visitors, as CHS held an early 6-0 lead and forced a Monterey timeout. The Lady Wildcats began to put some steam together and cut the deficit down to just a couple points, but Clarkrange maintained their lead and finished off the first set with a 25-16 win.
FIRST SET
Monterey finds their rhythm and makes it interesting, but Clarkrange puts the first set away 25-16.
— Rusty Ellis (@RustyEllis_) September 19, 2022
The second set featured more back-and-forth play for both teams, though it was once again the Lady Buffaloes that would win the set. This one was by another 25-16 count to push the match to the final set for Clarkrange.
Monterey continued battling, but the visitors proved to be just a little too much and finished off a 3-0 sweep with a 25-15 win in the third set.
While she was happy with the win as a whole, CHS head coach Cindy Stowers recognized there’s still plenty for her team to build on moving forward.
“We were much better with serving, we’ve been struggling with that lately,” Stowers said. “We overcame that tonight so hopefully we keep that up. We let a few points fall right between us and we’ve got to fix that, that can’t just happen.”
The second set in particular was more competitive than the bookend sets, as Monterey battled to stay in the match. Stowers says that she saw her team turn things up a notch about midway through the frame, which made the difference.
SECOND SET
Clarkrange takes the second set, a back-and-forth affair, 25-16. The Lady Buffaloes are one set away from a sweep.
— Rusty Ellis (@RustyEllis_) September 20, 2022
“We started playing again instead of letting it fall,” Stowers said. “Instead of playing into their game, we went back to playing our game. We came back into our game more so…we’ve got to do better with communicating with each other. You’ve got to call the ball and then get the ball. You can’t just let it fall.”
Clarkrange will battle Coalfield on Tuesday, while Monterey will travel to Oliver Springs.
