County teams fall short in district tourney

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

District 1 play for the Class II teams started on Monday, October 16. The winner of the district tournament would go on to represent the district in State competition on October 21. Class II teams include: Twin Rivers (who as first seed had a first round bye), Malden, South Pemiscot, Senath-Hornersville, Portageville, Hayti, and Caruthersville, Play started Monday evening, October 16. The brackets were set, and the tournament was held in Malden.

The first set was a hotly contested matchup between the number 4 and number 5 seeds, Senath-Hornersville and Portageville. The entire two-set match was close as the two teams were equally matched. Portageville went on to take the match 2-0 and moved on to play Twin Rivers, who had a first seed bye on Monday.

The second match was between the number 2 and the number 7 seeds, Malden and Caruthersville. Game one showed Malden’s strength as they quickly got off to a strong lead. The Lady Tigers worked hard to try to catch up, getting within 2-points of the Malden. Melissa Ibarra had a strong series of serves and was assisted with good blocking by Keara Johnson and Hannah Coleman which allowed Caruthersville to keep the score close for a time. Eventually, the stronger Malden team pulled ahead and overtook the Tigers. Game two again saw Malden starting off strong. The Lady Tigers struggles to keep the ball, allowing Malden to widen the lead to the point that it was difficult for Caruthersville to recover. Even so, the Tigers battled hard, but were never able to close the large gap in score. Malden took the match 2-0 and would move on to play the winner of the last match of the night, between South Pemiscot and Hayti.

The third and final match of the night was between the number 3 and the number 6 seeds, South Pemiscot and Hayti. In the first game, The Lady Bulldogs started off very defensive against the Lady Indians, setting the pace of the match. The Lady Indians battled hard against the stronger South Pemiscot team. The Lady Bulldogs were strong in serving, passing, setting and blocking, which kept Hayti from scoring easily. A strong serving run by Hayti’s Macen McKay showed that the Lady Indians were not going to go down easily. But eventually, the Lady Bulldogs prevailed. Game two showed that the Lady Bulldogs were done playing around. Their stronger serves and blocks kept the Indians from gaining a foothold on the game. South Pemiscot took the match 2-0 and would go on to play Malden on Tuesday night.

Tuesday night saw the winners of the previous night going head to head. Match one was between Twin Rivers and Portageville. The match as an exciting one as the two top seeds battled back and forth. Each team took a game forcing a third game to break the tie. The scoring remained close and continued the back and forth momentum. Finally, the Twin Rivers team gained enough points to win the match 2-1 and would advance to play the winner of the Malden and South Pemiscot game.

Match two was between Malden and South Pemiscot. Game one saw Malden storm onto the courts, not allowing South Pemiscot much opportunity to score points. Malden kept the Lady Bulldogs from gaining any sort of momentum and quickly took game one. Game two, the Lady Bulldogs came out strong, not letting Malden have any momentum early on. The Bulldogs showed strong serving skills, racked up a nice series of points before giving the serve over to Malden. Malden didn’t gain a lot of points before turning the ball back over to South Pemiscot. But, the recovery was short lived. South Pemiscot returned the ball to Malden. After some back and for the play, Malden caught up, then took the lead. Even though South Pemiscot fought hard, Malden would not allow South Pemiscot to again get close in score, and took game two and the match 2-0. Malden would go on to play Twin Rivers for the district title and a chance to move into state play.

Wednesday night saw the winners of the previous night’s matches go head to head. Malden and Twin Rivers played for the district title and a chance to move on to state play. The two teams battled it out, but Malden took the match 2-0 and moved on to represent the district in state play. Malden faced St. Pious in the first round and lost 2-0 ending the season for all District 1 Class II teams.