By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
The Cabot Lady Panther volleyball team enjoyed a relatively successful weekend at the 12-team Russellville tournament. The Lady Panthers finished fifth overall after taking a two seed out of pool play and into the bracketed tournament.
Cabot started out playing nearby rival Lonoke and beat the Lady Jackrabbits 25-19 and 25-23. They then split with Springdale, winning game one 25-21 and losing game two 19-25. Afterwards they faced tournament host Russellville and lost 22-25 and 19-25.
“We played pretty decent I guess,” Cabot coach DeAnna Campbell said. “We won more games than we lost and we didn’t go home early. I’d like for us to get over that hump and really beat one of those 7A teams, but we’re getting closer and closer. We split our two games with Springdale but we got the higher seed in the tournament because we scored more overall points than they did. We played Russellville a lot closer than they did.”
Cabot went to bracket play and beat another 7A team and conference rival Little Rock Central. The Lady Panthers won the match 25-14 twice, but Campbell warns that the Lady Tigers will be a different team when Cabot goes to Central on Thursday.
“They didn’t look like they were giving their best effort,” Campbell said. “They had a kid go out with a concussion that had to go to the hospital. They didn’t look like they wanted to be there anymore. It was just a bad weekend all around for them. They’re going to be much tougher when we go there on Thursday and we’d better be ready for that.”
The Lady Panthers were knocked out of the tournament in a 2-1 loss to Bryant. While Cabot wasn’t happy about losing, it was significant that the Lady Panthers became the first squad to take a game off the Lady Hornets this season.
“She told me they had beaten everyone in three games,” Campbell said of Bryant’s coach. “They’re tall and athletic and have a senior lineup, so it was great for us to really dominate that one game.”
Scores in the match were 19-25, 25-16 and 8-15 for Bryant. The lost game against Cabot was a sign of things to come for the Hornets. Bryant went to sweep Russellville in the semifinals, but lost the tournament championship match in three games to Mount St. Mary’s.
The Lady Panthers played host to Mountain Home last night. Look for details of that match and Thursday’s match at Central in Saturday’s edition of The Leader.
