Lady Grizzlies Season Comes To An End

The Lady Grizzlies had a busy week last week.  They wrapped up their regular season with a couple of good battles with some rivals old and new.  They started the week off taking on their old cross county rivals the Soda Springs Cardinals.  This match took place at Soda Springs high school and had an enthusiastic environment with great representation from both schools.  Earlier in the season the Cardinals controlled their previous match in Grace winning in three sets.  This time a much improved Grizzly team put forth one of their most impressive performances of the year.  The Lady Grizzlies came out as the aggressors and didn't let up the whole night.  Grace answered back to the early season sweep by the Cardinals with a sweep of their own winning in three sets with scores of 25-18, 25-15, and 25-19.

Coming off of the big win in Soda the Grizzlies hoped to ride that momentum into their season finale against their new rivals the Butte County Pirates.  The Grizzlies were once again on the road for this game and somewhere between Grace and Arco the momentum escaped the Lady Grizzlies.  When they got to Butte County High School the Grizzlies struggled to get things going.  Granted that Butte is currently ranked as the second best team in the state and one of the favorites to win a title but just two nights earlier the Grizzlies had shown what kind of potential they had when playing in Soda.  Unfortunately, Grace just could not get into a rhythm and fell to the Pirates in three straight sets with scores of 25-17, 25-9, and 25-16.

That loss caused some consternation amongst Grizzly fans due to the fact that the Grizzlies would have to face the Pirates just a few days later to play for the district title.  With just the two teams in the district the High Desert Conference title would be decided with the simplest district tournament bracket in the state.  It is very simple, win a best of three series of matches with each match being a best of five sets.  The High Desert Conference decided that the first two matches would take place this past Monday evening located at the neutral site of Thunder Ridge High School.  If the teams happened to split the matches an if necessary match would take place Wednesday back at Thunder Ridge.  

The Grizzlies went into Monday night as the underdogs with many sports pundits across the states assuming that the Pirates would easily cruise to the victory.  With the devastating loss for the Grizzlies just four days earlier no one would blame them for these assumptions.  However the Lady Grizzlies were not going to just lay down and hand the victory to the Pirates.  The first match was very competitive with several ties and lead changes throughout.  In the end the Pirates did get the victory in three sets but the scores were much closer than many expected.  Those scores were 25-21, 25-18, and 25-20. 

With the completion of the first match the two teams immediately walked back onto the court to play the second match.  Once again the Grizzlies stayed competitive but would slowly run out of gas and make too many mistakes against a high caliber team.  The Grizzlies eventually fell once again in three sets with scores of 25-19, 25-18, and 25-17.  With the loss the Grizzlies season came to an end.

The Lady Grizzlies ended the season much improved over where they started the season.  Though they do lose three starters to graduation the team is relatively young and should continue to grow and improve into next season.  The three seniors they will lose had a big impact on the team and its continued growth through the season.  Olenslager and Willams played terrific on the front row this year while libero Newby had some incredible leadership and play on the back row.  Congratulations to the Grizzlies on a great season and good luck moving forward.