The Weatherford Lady Roos were not able to keep up the great momentum from the previous weekend’s tournament championship, losing their home match Tuesday, Aug. 25, against Duncanville.
The Lady Panthers won the match in straight sets as the Lady Roos looked out of sorts for most of the match.
The first set started competitively as Weatherford trailed only 9-6. From there, hitting errors piled onto each other which led to mis-hits, bad passing and defense that was a step slow. Duncanville went on a 12-3 run to go up 21-9 in the set before closing it out 25-14.
The second set was even worse for the Lady Roos. Bad serve-receive led to some early substitutions as Weatherford fell behind 10-0 to start the set. The team never really recovered, losing the set 25-14.
The third set started similarly as the Lady Roos fell behind 7-3 and later trailed 13-7. Weatherford made a great mid-set comeback, cutting the score to 15-14 as the team started playing how it knows it can and cleaning up a lot of the mistakes.
Duncanville got some breathing room 19-16 heading into the homestretch, but the Lady Roos would not go away, tying the score at 20 and making it anyone’s set down in the final few points.
Weatherford even took its first lead of the set 23-22, but unfortunately the Lady Panthers closed out the set, with the final point being a block-kill to punctuate the Lady Roos’ tough night. Duncanville won the set 25-23.
Weatherford coach Courtney Hammett was not pleased with how her young team seemed to walk into the game intimidated and let those nerves affect their play.
“One mistake led to three, four, five, six mistakes,” Hammett said. “We weren’t responding after errors. We were letting errors compound and next thing we knew we were in a hole and against a team like that you can’t give them any freebies. We gave them a lot.”
Weatherford plays in its final tournament on Friday-Saturday, Aug. 28-29 at Arlington High School. Next week the Lady Roos are scheduled to play at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 1, at Azle.
The Weatherford Lady Roos had a great run at the Granbury tournament Thursday through Saturday, Aug. 20-22, winning the gold bracket championship.
The Lady Roos went 8-2 overall and were able to get two wins during bracket play against the two teams that had beaten them earlier in the tournament.
Weatherford started with a solid straight-sets win against Richland (25-17, 25-23) before losing the second match against Permian in three sets (25-23, 14-25, 19-25). The Lady Roos recovered to finish the first day on top, beating All Saints in straight sets (25-9, 25-14).
The second day of the tournament started off with a big test against Bushland. It went three sets, but Weatherford won (25-17, 22-25, 25-23). The second match of the day did not go the Lady Roos way, losing in straight sets to Burleson (25-19, 25-21).
Weatherford was able to rally by beating Midlothian in straight sets (25-11, 25-22) to earn an invitation to the gold bracket on the final day.
Bracket play started with a tough test against the defending Class 4A state champs Decatur. Weatherford won in straight sets (25-18, 27-25).
The Lady Roos then got their rematch against Permian and this time won in straight sets (25-21, 25-18) to advance to the championship match. There, Weatherford faced off against another familiar foe, Burleson.
The Lady Roos lost the first set 25-22 but won a close second set 27-25 before winning decisively in the third 25-19 to win the match and the tournament championship.
Setter Joy Versola and outside hitters Ava Broadie and Laine Tomlinson were named to the all-tournament team while libero Hayden Faught earned the tournament’s most valuable player award.
Broadie led the team with 120 kills while Tomlinson was second with 79. Versola had a team-high 137 assists, and Natalie Griffin was second with 98 assists. Fought led the team with 95 digs and eight service aces. Eloise Beauchamp totaled 22 blocks during the tournament to lead the team while Isabella Hale added 10 blocks.
Coach Courtney Hammett was proud not just of the result, but the way her team started to come together.
“Besides the wins and tournament championship, the growth and chemistry development was huge this weekend,” Hammett said. “Some younger girls stepped up. My captains started speaking up and leading the team. My team responded to my captains. They were just playing for each other. Our whole philosophy the last couple of years is play for something bigger than yourself. This weekend is when it finally clicked for them.”
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