Prairie Grove jumps all over Gentry
PRAIRIE GROVE — Gentry struggled to find its offense as the Lady Pioneers dropped the regular season finale, 25-15, 25-8, 25-21, at Prairie Grove Thursday.
The Lady Tigers jumped out to a 17-3 lead in the first set before Gentry found its footing. The Lady Pioneers did their best to fashion some kind of a rally and put together a 9-2 run.
Elsi Deleon served a pair of aces and Kelsi Amos had a kill. Alyssa McCarty found her groove, driving home two kills, and Gentry closed to within 19-12, but their early deficit was too much to overcome. Prairie Grove closed out the first set with a 6-3 run to win game one, 25-15. Kenleigh Starr nailed a kill for the Lady Tigers and Cortney Whetsell served an ace to get the Lady Tigers back on track.
Ashlyn Tag had a kill for Prairie Grove and Abigail Schopper had one for Gentry to make it 23-15, but the last two points came off Gentry miscues with Prairie Grove claiming a 25-15 first-set victory.
The second set was all Lady Tigers.
Prairie Grove again jumped out to a 15-3 lead as the Lady Tigers did in the first set. Tag and Macy Guist had aces while kills seemingly came from everywhere. Six different Lady Tigers chalked up kills during the run, Tag, Havyn Huber (block-kill), Ashtyn Burton, Kenleigh Elder, Kenleigh Starr and Kamrynn Coughran all knocked down kills.
Most of Gentry’s points during the set came off Prairie Grove errors, but the Lady Tigers made plays repeatedly. Coughran’s ace brought Prairie Grove to game-point, leading 24-8, and Reany White finished off the set with a kill to put Prairie Grove ahead two games to none in the match.
Gentry’s best set of the match occurred in game three although they started in a 7-3 hole before sophomore McKenzie Barnes got a side-out for the Lady Pioneers with a kill.
Gentry generated some momentum with an 11-4 run.
Amos and McCarty contributed kills for Gentry, and the Lady Tigers made mistakes that enabled Gentry to tie the match at 1111. Hester served an ace to give Gentry its first lead of the entire match. The Lady Pioneers then built their biggest lead of the match on Schopper’s kill to move ahead, 14-11.
Gentry continued to lead for the next few points with sophomore Cayci Capps scoring from the right hitter position to make it 18-16.
In the end, the shaky start would prove Gentry’s undoing. The Lady Pioneers exerted a lot of energy to get back in the set and Prairie Grove found openings down the stretch. Coughran’s kill kickstarted a 9-3 Lady Tiger run to finish the match.
The last tie came at 20-20. Elder and Starr smashed kills. Barnes answered for Gentry to make it 22-21 but the Lady Pioneers wouldn’t score again and lost 25-21 on Tag’s ace for the Lady Tigers.