The Langford Area volleyball team had a rugged end to its regular season schedule and should be battle-tested heading into postseason play on Tuesday.
The Lady Lions played a pair of Class A schools in Webster Area (13-9) and Groton Area (23-5) and wrapped up its regular season against perennial Class B power Warner (28-6).
“It’s rough to end your season play with such a tough schedule,” said LA coach Susan Larson, “but I was pleased with the way the team played against Warner. We had a tough go with Webster and Groton. We lacked some consistency, and against Warner we played more consistently. We gave up a few runs of points here and there, but we definitely had some volleys where we really played with them.
“The tough schedule does give us some areas to focus on for postseason play,” added Larson. “Our offense is driven by our passing and we just need to do a better, more consistent job there. Our defense has improved so much this season. Paytyn Marlow has become a great defender and Brynn Samson has improved and gained confidence in the back row. We’ve got work to do before next Tuesday night, but these ladies have never been afraid of a little work.”
Region 1B gets underway on Monday with a pair of play-in games in the 10-team region. Based on seed points through Monday matches #8 Leola-Frederick (4-15) will host #9 Tiospa Zina (4-24) and #7 Waverly-South Shore (9-18) will host #10 Wilmot (3-24).
On Tuesday Langford Area (11-20) sits in the fifth spot and would travel to four seed Aberdeen Christian (15-8). AC swept the Lady Lions 25-18, 25-23, 25-11 in a regular season matchup.
In other Tuesday matchups top-seeded Northwestern (31-2) will host the 8-9 winner and second-seeded Warner (28-6) would host the 7-10 winner. Three seed Hitchcock-Tulare (25-4) would host sixth seed Waubay-Summit (10-14). Semifinal matches will be played next week Thursday to determine the two SoDak 16 qualifiers.
Warner 25-25-25
LA 9-13-14
Warner swept the Lady Lions and improved its season mark to 28-6.
Emily Olson had four kills and Lizzie Gustafson and Brooke Dwight three each.
Webster Area 25-21-25-25
LA 9-25-9-19
Langford Area rallied from a first set loss to even the match but then dropped sets three and four to Webster Area.
“Webster was a roller coaster night,” said Larson. “We really struggled in the first set, but we fired back and won the second set. I was hoping we had settled down into the game, but we fell apart in the third set again. Volleyball can be a game of momentum for sure and we just couldn’t keep the momentum. I’m really looking for more consistency this time of year, so we have some work to do. I thought we played well again in the fourth set, but we were unable to pull out a win.”
Lizzie Gustafson pounded nine kills and Emily Olson had seven for the Lady Lions and Paytyn Marlow was 13-14 from the service line with an ace and came up with 22 digs.
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