Lady Cards Suffer Tough Loss

The Soda Springs volleyball team had two big games last week against West Side and Declo.  Prior to last week's games all three teams were unscathed in district play.  The games would mark the beginning of district play for some of them and would start to shape the postseason picture.

The Cardinals started the week off hosting West Side.  The Cardinals struggled in this matchup.  In the first set Soda got on the board first but the lead would not last long.  After going down 3-4 Soda would not be able to keep the set close getting down 13-22.  The Cardinals made a push at the end, but it was too little too late as they dropped the first set by a score of 17-25.  In the second set, the Cardinals appeared to finally get into a flow and the game remained close, eventually becoming tied at fourteen points each.  Then the wheels came off as West Side continued serving the ball and the Cardinals had a tough time even getting a return.  The Pirates scored the last eleven points of the set winning 25-14.  The third set started with the momentum in Soda’s favor as they jumped out to a 7-0 lead.  Following a Pirate timeout West Side went on a run of their own and knotted the game up at seven.  The set stayed close throughout with several ties.  West Side got their first lead of the set at 19-18.  Soda would not be able to respond and eventually lost the match in the third set with a score of 25-20.

Following the disappointing loss to their district rivals, the Cardinals had to travel to Declo to face another tough team.  This match was a very entertaining one as every set was close and for the first time this season, the Cardinals pushed to all five sets.  The first three sets all ended with the same score of 25-22, with Soda grabbing two out of those three wins.  Each of the first three sets were competitive and exciting for the loud crowd inside the Hornets gym, but the fourth set saw the most drama of the match.  In that fourth set, the Cardinals looked like they were well on their way to wrapping up the match with a victory when they took a commanding 13-5 lead, forcing Declo to take a pair of timeouts along the way.  Declo took the momentum at that point and closed the gap to 15-13.  The set remained tight from there.  As the teams got ever closer to the twenty-fifth point the intensity grew.  After becoming tied at twenty-two Soda took the slight advantage at 24-23.  However, Declo would score the next two points forcing the set to go long.  The match continued that way for several serves going back and forth as the score continued to rise above the usual twenty-five point finish.  With several of the points coming off of long rallies the mental and physical fatigue began to set in with scores tied at thirty points each.  Soda made the first critical error with a long serve out of bounds and followed that up with a big kill that went long and the set finally ended with the Cardinals losing 32-30 sending the match to the fifth and final set.  In the fifth set the evenly matched teams continued to keep the score close.  The Cardinals would last lead 13-12 before watching Declo earn the final three points to take the match three games to two.  Even with the disappointing loss the Cardinals looked much better against the Hornets as they committed far less errors than the match versus the Pirates.  

The Lady Cardinals will get to stay home on the 25th to play Aberdeen then hit the road again the following night as they travel to Malad.  They will get to see both ends of the spectrum in those games as Aberdeen is sitting at the bottom of the conference while Malad currently sits in first place with a lot of volleyball to still go before the district tournament.