By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Webb City’s volleyball team lost 3-1 to Carl Junction in the regular season and faced the top-seeded Bulldogs again on Saturday in the Class 4 District 6 championship at McDonald County.
But if the Cardinals were supposed to be underdogs, they sure didn’t play like it.
Webb City shook off a two-point loss in the first set and got stronger as the match went on, ultimately winning three straight to earn the program’s third district title in a row – each of them against rival Carl Junction.
“We were not happy with our performance the first time around,” Webb City coach Rhonda Lawrence said. “We barely lost, literally six points out of three sets, but we just knew we had more to give. We knew we had more in the tank than what we had given.”
The second seed Cardinals proved it on Saturday in the fifth straight year the two schools have matched up in the district finals. Webb City’s now won four of those.
The Cardinals, 23-6, will play next Saturday in the state quarterfinal round.
“We’ve just really been focusing on this week,” Lawrence said. “Branson (3-2 win) was a fight to the death. They gave us all they could give us and we barely scraped by and got out of there. I said we need to reevaluate. You’re working too hard and it’s not fun anymore. We talked about trusting each other and really believing in each other.”
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“It’s like hey, we need to take a breath and love volleyball again,” she said. “In practice we loved on each other and tried to love the game and we tried to make sure we were playing for each other, not just for a win.”
Carl Junction, which finished 25-9-2, only trailed for one point in the opening set and took a 25-23 win for the early advantage. The second set was just as close, with the teams locking up at 3, 5, 16, 17 and 22.
Webb City senior Aubree Lassiter broke the deadlock at 22 with a kill and then added another to give the Cardinals the 25-23 win. Webb City cruised after that.
Sophomore Jaeli Rutledge notched a kill midway through the third set to get the ball in freshman Jaylee Van Beceleare’s hands with the Cardinals leading 16-11. She served up three aces to help Webb City extend it to 20-11, and junior Mia Lenker eventually ended it at 25-17 with a big swing.
Webb City quickly took a double-digit lead in the fourth set and led by as many as 13 points following an ace by Savannah Crane (18-5) and a kill by Rutledge (23-10). Lassiter’s kill ended it at 25-14 and gave the Cardinals the 3-1 win.
Webb City recorded 13 aces in the match including three apiece from Lassiter, Van Beceleare and Lenker.
“You can’t deny those were point runs that made a huge difference,” Lawrence said. “Their service was top notch. We try to serve everybody aggressively because you take them out of system so it’s automatically better for you but really they took it up a level. They’re scoring like seven in a row or so and Van Beceleare had three aces, that’s a big run. She’s a freshman and it’s hard to believe with somebody that young and green but she knows her role and we worked on getting her comfortable in that. She just loves the game and wants to do what she can to make her successful. And Lenker coming on, she sent some fireballs, too, at crucial times that really put them on their heels.”
Rutledge finished with 18 kills, Lassiter had 17 kills and Sophia Crane had 19 digs.
For Carl Junction, Aubreigh Fowler had 10 kills, Kylie Scott had 15 kills, Abigail Wilson had 17 digs and Scott had 13 digs.
