PC girls win Bridgeport tourney

After six games in six days, from Monday to Saturday, the Lady Plainsmen walked away with five wins and just one loss.

The girls picked up their first win Monday, Sept. 13 against Arthur County, and finished up the week with a triangular in South Platte Thursday and a tourney in Bridgeport Saturday.

When the week came to an end, the team had added several wins to their record, and took first place honors at Bridgeport’s tourney.

“What a week!” said coach Monica Cole. “The girls played their tails off and it showed.”

South Platte Triangular

Thursday, the Lady Plainsmen headed to South Platte for a triangular which also included Paxton.

“We knew that Paxton wasn’t just going to let us have a win for the night,” Cole said. “We had seen them in summer camp and knew they were putting up a good team this season and we needed to be prepared.”

In a series of close games, Perkins County took two of the three sets against Paxton, 28-26 and 25-17. They fell in the second set, however, 23-25.

Cole noted this was a good win for the team leading into their South Platte match right after.

“The girls were determined to put up a different game against South Platte from the first meeting with them,” she added. “They knew they were capable of more and they did it from the get-go.”

The team’s plan was to shut down South Platte’s outside hitters with blocking and defense, and Cole said the team did just that.

Perkins County took victory over South Platte in just two sets, 25-24 and 25-22.

“We played great defense, and we dug the ball well,” Cole said, adding that the low ceilings at South Platte added another challenge for the team. “The girls had to track the ball down well when it hit the ceiling to play another play and we consistently did that.”

Cole also noted the girls had four pancakes—a move where a player digs the ball with their hand flat on the floor—against South Platte, which she said showed hustle.

Bridgeport Tourney

Next up for the Lady Plainsmen was the Bridgeport Tourney Saturday, Sept. 18. Four teams were present at the tourney: Bridgeport, Perkins County, Bayard and Leyton.

Cole said the team doesn’t see a lot of Panhandle teams during the season besides this tourney, so it’s always good to play someone different.

“With it being such a big week on our schedule, we knew going in that we were going to have to be on top of our game since we were on the home stretch of a long week,” Cole added.

Perkins County started the day off with a two-set game against Bayard where the girls picked up their first win of the night, defeating their opponents 25-22 and 26-24.

Their second game of the day was against Leyton, where though the scores were close, Perkins County was unable to pull ahead of their opponent in the end. The Lady Plainsmen took the first set 25-21, but fell to Leyton in the final two, 25-22 and 25-27.

Cole said watching the film of the game, she noticed the girls just made some miscommunication errors and crucial hitting errors which cost the game.

“We had opportunities, it just didn’t work out for us on that one,” she noted, adding Leyton’s winning point dribbled over the net.

Perkins County’s third and final game of the tourney was against the game host, Bridgeport. Perkins County started the match strong, winning the first set 25-22. Bridgeport took the second set 25-12, but the Lady Plainsmen came back for a win, 25-21 in the third.

The girls’ efforts ranked them first in the tourney, and Cole said the girls were very excited to come away with two wins from the day. Beating Bridgeport, however, was the big victory.

“It was the first time in nine years that we had beaten them,” Cole said. “We see them multiple times a year usually, so that was a major success to the day.”

Cole added that she gets emotional when she sees the team succeed because she knows how much and how hard they work.

“They bust their tails day in and day out for their team,” she said. “I am so proud of them.”

JV Hershey Triangular

The jayvee Lady Plainsmen team faced Hershey and Sutherland in Hershey Monday, Sept. 20 where they added a win and a loss to their record.

The girls fell to Hershey after battling hard, and came back to defeat Sutherland in three sets.

“Katie Cook is playing very sound ball right now and leads that team in such a positive manner in so many different ways!” Cole said.

Next Action

The Lady Plainsmen get a small break from games after what Cole described as “an exceptionally long week,” before heading to their next competition.

Saturday, Sept. 25, the girls will play in the Potter-Dix tourney. The first game of the day will be at 9 a.m. with Potter-Dix facing Crawford. After that, games will begin on the hour or 20 minutes after the previous game wraps up.

Game two is Crawford versus Perkins County, followed by Perkins County versus Morrill. Game four will be Morrill against Crawford. Perkins County will play their final game of the day in game five against Potter-Dix, before Potter-Dix closes out the day with a final game against Morrill.

Next Tuesday, the girls will host a triangular with Gothenburg and Imperial. Perkins County will play Gothenburg in the first game starting at 4:30 p.m. Gothenburg and Chase County will then face off before Perkins County and Chase County close out the day in the final game.