Leader sports editor
The Lady Panthers got the volleyball season under way with a tri-match split against Morrilton and Lonoke on Tuesday. The three teams convened at Cabot High School to play a pair of best-of-three matches. The Lady Panthers lost the opener to Morrilton 30-32, 25-23 and 25-17. Later, they beat Lonoke 25-14 and 25-16. Morrilton also swept Lonoke and left with a 2-0 record.
On Thursday, the Cabot ladies hosted Batesville and lost a lengthy, hard-fought match in five games. Scores in that one were 25-15, 22-25, 25-23, 21-25 and 7-15.
Cabot coach Deanne Campbell is being patient with her young, sophomore-laden team, and saw good things from the first week of play.
“They’re playing hard and they’re doing a good job of keeping the ball alive,” Campbellsaid. “That’s what we’ve worked hard on, was not making mistakes. We’ve had a lot of long volleys because we’ve done well at the things we’ve worked. We now have to take that and get better.”
One of the areas that can improve is Cabot’s service game. The Lady Panthers only missed three serves the entire five-game match against Batesville, but didn’t put the Lady Pioneers on the defensive with the service game.
“Again, we’re young and we’ve worked extensively on getting the serve in,” Campbell said. “Now we have to take that and start serving tougher. Now we need to get more aggressive with our serves.”
While keeping the volleys alive is a good thing. Campbell would also like to see her squad do more to try and end them.
“We’ve done great at not making mistakes,” Campbell said. “But now we need to start trying to score our own points instead of waiting for our opponent to make a mistake.”
Campbell is confident her team can make those adjustments and execute the next step of the plan, because in the first three matches, it has executed the things she has been teaching.
“They’ve have done really well at the things we’ve worked on,” Campbell said. “They know where they’re supposed to be and how to get where they need to be. I see them doing all the things we’ve worked on up to this point. They’re just young, and we’re a team that’s still learning. But I’m very pleased so far with how they’ve responded to everything we’ve been teaching them.”
Game experience is what Campbell believes will be the key to improving the aggressiveness on the court.
“Right now I think they’re still thinking a lot out there,” Campbell said. “They’re doing all the things we’ve asked of them, but they’re still having to think about it. Just getting game experience and getting older is going to help that. They’re going to get more comfortable out there and not have to think about those things as much, and then they can focus on the aggressiveness.”
Cabot’s next match is a rematch with Morrilton on the road next Tuesday.
