Lady Backs rout J.A. Fair in three sets
The outcome showed that Arkansas High’s volleyball team is not polished.
It took longer than expected, but the Lady Backs did get their anticipated sweep of J.A. Fair Thursday at Razorback Gym.
But the path to AHS’ 25-7, 25-19, 25-17 victory was neither smooth or easy.
“Keeping your intensity against a team like (Fair) sometimes is hard to do, but it should not have been really that hard to do,” said coach Angela Moody.
Intensity was not a problem for the Lady Backs in Game 1. AHS (9-7, 3-3) dispatched the Lady War Eagles in 14 minutes, rocketing off 14 straight points at one point.
It displayed the team’s skills at their best. The rest of the night was quite different.
“We should have been a lot more aggressive,” Moody added. “We made a lot of unforced mistakes.”
Those mistakes allowed the Lady War Eagles to post a threat in each of the remaining two games.
Fair held a 13-6 lead on AHS midway into Game 2 and forced two ties—the last at 17-17—before the Lady Backs hit the switch.
Jasmine Allen pushed a ball through two Fair blockers at the net for a winner. Fair aided their opponent’s cause with a couple of net violations. The result was a 5-1 run where AHS took a 22-18 lead, then finished the job by scoring three of the next four points.
“They have the athletes, they just don’t have any volleyball background and you can’t allow them to have any breathing room at all,” Moody said.
Fair, however, was spent after
taking its 5-4 lead in the final game.
Once again, the Lady Backs took advantage of Fair’s unforced errors to take charge.
Ahead 9-6 after the violations, Morgan Norwood put AHS back on course. The junior pounded down two of the seven kills she had in the match at that point to open an 11-8 advantage.
After that, the gap between the two teams widened. Norwood’s block and return of a Fair volley at the net put AHS up, 20-13.
Fittingly, AHS’ 3-0 run that closed the match ended on a Fair unforced error when a return splattered into the Lady War Eagles side of the net.
Earlier, the Lady Backs jayvees swept Fair, 25-6, 25-9. Allen led all scorers with 15 points.
Prior to next Tuesday’s non-conference home match with Evangel Christian, the Lady Backs will compete in Saturday’s Henderson Tournament in Arkadelphia.