By T. Scott Boatright
The Ruston High School volleyball team not only faced West Ouachita on Monday evening at the RHS Gym.
But Ruston shook off the hoopla of a post-Homecoming week as well as Senior Night jitters.
The Lady Bearcats honored seniors Maggie Ambrose, Lorelei Freling, Rhagen Shallowhorn, JerAlyn Black, Emajai Williams and Hannah Johnson before the match before taking a straight sets (25-16, 25-15, 25-7) win over the Lady Chiefs to climb to 29-6 on the season.
RHS coach Lucie Hunt admitted the non-match ongoings surrounding the team did cause some distractions.
“Added on to coming off Homecoming was the stress involved with Senior Night – everybody wanting to take pictures and everybody wanting to make memories, which is great and I love for them to have these memories.
“But at the same time at the end of the day we still have a game to play. We were a little emotional at first and our heads were in other areas and then we pulled it together.”
The Lady Bearcats actually reeled off five straight points to open the first set before West Ouachita battled back to make it 5-4.
Ruston only trailed once in the match, when West Ouachita moved on top 2-1 early in the second set.
But then the Bearcats netted five straight points.
Ruston led the second set 17-7 before the Lady Chiefs went on a run of their own, outscoring RHS 8-1to cut the Lady Bearcats’ lead to 18-15.
The Lady Bearcats countered with a seven-point run to close out the second set.
“Coming off Homecoming weekend, everybody’s tired, so we mixed things up some,” Hunt said. “We tried some people at new positions and did a couple of things that didn’t click right away.
“At time outs we just talked about setting the tone for the (upcoming) weekend tournament (in Baton Rouge), practice like we play and making sure we’re getting ready for the playoffs.”
The Bearcats then put it in high-octane cruise control in the final set to give Ruston an 18-point victory in that stanza.
Smith finished with seven kills and five blocks while Harper Cauley led the Bearcats with 11 kills while adding a pair of aces.
Freling totaled 14 digs and five aces for Ruston while Hannah Rollins added four kills, a block and and three aces and Rhagen Shallowhorn totaled five kills and two blocks for the Bearcats.
Allie Richardson and Katelyn Rollins chipped in with nine assists each for the Bearcats.
“It was just a slow start for everybody tonight but our ‘go-tos’ — the girls that have been consistent all season long came through tonight,” Hunt said. “We had a couple of miscommunication errors and things like that, but we took care of business and got it done. We just have to keep building on all of it and getting better.”
“Execution had been the name of the game all season long, so being able to execute the way we did and hold it to three sets, even though we made some errors along the way, that’s only going to help us this weekend and into the playoffs.”
The Bearcats, 26-9, will travel to the Dunham Tournament this weekend to end the regular season and play Archbishop Hannan, Ursuline, Dunham, and Ben Franklin.
“We just got our schedule this morning and we’re playing some pretty strong and well-known teams,” Hunt said. “We’re playing Archbishop Hannan, Dunham, Ursuline and Ben Franklin. Those are some pretty loaded teams.
“It’s exciting. I know that we’re going to give them a great game. We would get some really good wins out of this weekend that might help with the power rankings and (playoff) seeding situation. I’d love to be able to have a home playoff game. Right now we’re sitting just below that mark. But there’s going to be some major shifts across the entire state this (upcoming) weekend, so we’re fired up.”
The Lady Bearcats also celebrated other big news after learning that Freling has been selected to the 2022 LHSCA/LVCA West All-Star team with Hunt being named a coordinator for the West All Stars.
That game date and site have yet to be determined.
