Rams stay undefeated, enter state tourney as top seed
Lakeside ended its regular season with a three-set sweep over Hot Springs Tuesday to finish first in the
5A-South conference.
The Rams (19-1, 13-0) are still adjusting to the recent loss of senior Maddie Trusty due to a season-ending leg injury, head coach Rhonda Thigpen said. While Trusty was injured during the team’s Oct. 13 home game against Texarkana, it is not expected to affect her plans to play beach volleyball at Florida State next fall.
“It’s an adjustment to make, but I think that our hitters are swinging hard,” said Thigpen. “I think they’re swinging very hard. I thought our serve game was good. … So I just think we’ve got to increase our overall intensity because we have state coming up. Tonight’s like state; you should play every game at every opportunity. I think there were good spots, but I’m going to say, Hot Springs was hustling down every one of those balls, all over the court. That was good — good team play.”
Lakeside jumped out to a 3-0 lead with kills from senior Katie Ballard and junior Adachi Igbokidi. The home crowd came alive as senior Emma Campas picked up the first kill of the night for the Lady Trojans
(0-7, 0-6). Lakeside answered quickly, scoring six unanswered points to take a 9-1 lead before Lady Trojans head coach Deana Franklin called a timeout.
Lakeside maintained the upper hand as sophomore Olivia Porter doled out assists to Ballard and Igbokidi to extend the team’s lead to 14-3 en route to a 25-14 win of the first set.
Hot Springs looked to get ahead in the second set, taking an early lead before Lakeside once again came back with a vengeance to push out to a 20-11 lead after breaking an early 5-5 tie. The Lady Trojans added only one other point before Lady Rams senior Vivi Mardis iced the 25-12 victory with an ace.
Lakeside opened the third set with 7-1 lead, though the Lady Trojans battled back to trail only 8-4 following a block from senior Jurnee Hicks and hard kill from senior Jaylia Reed. The Rams’ duo of Campas and Ballard proved unstoppable to the Lady Trojans as Lakeside went on to hold a comfortable lead and finish out the sweep at 25-11.
Franklin said following the game that she was extremely proud of the team and their work and effort all season, but their focus now is solely on the Class 5A state tournament next week at Greenwood. Hot Springs will play Tuesday at 6 p.m.
“Overall tonight I don’t think we played real well,” she noted. “We’re capable of playing better than we did tonight, I think. I gave the kids … we had Friday and Monday as a holiday — kind of a fall break — and I gave the kids those days off. They’re bodies were tired, so we didn’t touch a volleyball for four days, and it showed a little bit.”
Ballard had 16 kills and two solo blocks, Sarah Porter tallied five kills with two solo blocks, and Igbokidi had three kills and two assisted blocks. Wesley Divers had seven kills and five digs, Carsen Cordell had two kills, and Porter finished with 25 assists, one ace and one assisted block.
Hicks and Reed each had seven kills for Hot Springs while junior Marlissa Archie had five kills and three blocks.
The outcome of Tuesday night’s game posed no effect to the state tournament seeding.
“I chose to give them those days off and let their bodies rest,” she said. “And we’ll come back in and work Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday and get ready to play on Tuesday. Our defense is still a little suspect at times, and we’ve put in a new defense that we worked on a little bit tonight. We had some holes that we didn’t get covered that we’ve got to work on, but we have some video to watch and hopefully we can get some of that tweaked out.”
The Rams will play the No. 4 seed on Tuesday at 3 p.m. Thigpen said that while the Rams will certainly miss Trusty in the lineup, the rest of the team has stepped up significantly in effort to fill the void.
“That’s tough, but the girls showed incredible fortitude to come back against a very talented Mena team (last Saturday) down two games to none, and they won in five,” she said. “So now they’ve got some confidence. They have to have confidence in their ability in order to step up their game. You can’t replace that kind of player, but you have to play as a team to contribute, and I feel like we did that. In spots, tonight, I saw it. And so that’s what we’re going to focus on these next couple of days. No more games until state, so let’s just get after it.”
Lakeside won the junior varsity match in two sets with scores of 25-15 and 25-12 to also finish the season undefeated in conference. Brooklyn Bourland had seven assists with one ace and one dig, Gracie Ruckstuhl had three kills and one ace, and Paige Woods finished with five assists and two kills.
• The Lakeside junior Rams (15-3, 12-0) won their 15th district tournament Tuesday night at home, defeating Magnolia 25-9 and 25-22.
Lyndsay Mehlin led the team with seven kills, three solo blocks and two digs, Madi Belle Landry had six kills, three solo blocks, three digs and an ace, Aubrey Judd had five kills and a block, and Sabrina Bledso had five kills. Lauren Foremen had two kills, Lauren Latham had 20 assists, three digs and an ace, Audrey Divers led the back row with 13 digs, and Wini Formby, Lexi Hardage and Olivia Godwin had eight digs each.
Lakeside defeated Hot Springs in the semifinals on Monday, 25-10, 25-14. Landry had eight kills, four digs and two solo blocks, Formby had four kills and three digs, Foreman added four kills, two digs and three aces, and Latham had three kills, 19 assists and two aces. Bledsoe had three kills, Jamie McKuin added two kills, and Charlotte Colgrove had one kill. Amelia Sweetin had 10 digs, Godwin six, and Bri Mattingly and Lucy LaDuke three each.