BANGS – The Bangs Lady Dragons shook off a five-set home loss to Abilene Christian this past Saturday, and tallied the final four points of the third set to complete a three-game non-district sweep of the Comanche Maidens, 25-16, 25-18, 26-24, Tuesday night.
Bangs (10-7) won the first two sets against Abilene Christian Saturday before the match slipped away, but on Tuesday rallied to finish off Comanche before the momentum could fully swing away from the Lady Dragons.
Trailing 24-22, Bangs came out of a timeout and received a break when Comanche hit the ball into the net. Neeley Bradley followed with a kill to knot the score at 24, then the Maidens hit another ball into the net to push the Lady Dragons in front, 25-24. Bangs then completed the comeback with an unreturnable serve from Bradley for the two-point triumph.
“It was game point and a game of perfection of that point,” said Bangs interim coach Tamara Minshew. “If we had one mistake they would score on us and the girls knew that. We had to score the last several points and any mistake was going to cost them the game, so they had to play perfect and they did that. We talked about making good decisions, keeping the ball alive and they did exactly what we talked to them about.”
Bradley finished with 12 kills, nine assists and a pair of aces to spark the Lady Dragons.
Jadyn Miller added 11 kills followed by Ava Boren and Emily Baker with three apiece and Raylee Hutchins with two. Boren also contributed a team-high 12 assists with Hutchins, Joey Newton and Kasey Solis – who also led the Lady Dragons in blocks – adding one assist each. Cloey Petty served a team-best four aces followed by Julianna Ethridge with three and Boren and Miller also chipped in one each.
“They’ve been playing some really good volleyball lately against some tough teams, and they played great tonight,” Minshew said. “We’ve been on a little roller coaster and our highs are really high and our lows are really low. We’ve given teams hope they can get back in matches and we have to stop letting other teams feel like they can play with us.”
In the first set, Bangs jumped out to a quick 11-2 lead aided by early kills from Baker, Bradley and Miller. Comanche crept back into the set and trailed just 16-12 before the Lady Dragons went on a 4-1 run, capped by a Miller kill, to re-establish a comfortable 20-13 edge.
Clinging to a 5-4 lead early in the second set, the serving of Petty – which included a pair of aces – ignited a string of 10 straight points for Bangs, which grabbed a 15-4 cushion. Boren and Bradley added two kills each during the run and Solis recorded a point off a block for the Lady Dragons.
Comanche again rallied and closed the gap to 23-18, which resulted in a Bangs timeout. After the break in action, a kill and an ace from Bradley finished off the second-set win for the Lady Dragons.
The Lady Dragons will be back in action at 11 a.m. Saturday at home against Brady, and the District 6-2A opener is looming Sept. 23 at Albany.
“We’re feeling really good about things, everyone’s healthy again, they’re playing good together and the team’s really coming together,” Minshew said. “Before district we need work on placement, our hitters need to really look at where we want to place the ball. We also need to read the blocks, whether it’s a single block or double block, and we’re still working on our defense and how we want to cover different situations. We don’t want to peak now, we want to do that during our district run but we have two really good teams in there in Albany and Hawley.”
