By T. Scott Boatright
The run continued for the Ruston High School volleyball team as the Bearcats won their fifth consecutive match by sweeping past Haughton in straight sets — 25-16, 25-16, 25-11 — inside the RHS Gym.
Ruston took it straight at the Buccaneers from the service line, recording 19 aces to move to 12-7 on the season.
Baylor Cauley led the way for RHS with five service aces while Ellie Williams and Brooklyn Bissell added four each, Camille Smith chipped in with three, Naomi Smith nailed two and Bridget Crittenden totaled one.
“That was part of our gameplan,” Cauley said. “I thought we did a good job of keeping them out of sorts. We accomplished that. That was a great job by our service line.”
But while they dominated, it still took a while for the Bearcats to really get going.
Ruston trailed by a point four times in the opening set before finally taking control to take it 25 – 16.
And the Bearcats trailed 8-9 in the second set before Bissell recorded three straight service aces that seemed to provide the spark to turn things up for Ruston the rest of the way.
“Honestly, it felt like it took us getting into the second set to start playing the way I felt like we should be playing,” Cauley said. “And then we got our confidence and got a run with it. I want our girls to show up and be that way every time. But we’re young and that’s part of learning. I think that’s part of teenage girls, too.
“But I know that when the best version of us shows up, we can hang with anybody. So, that’s what we’re aiming for — to get the best version of this group consistently over time.”
As the Bearcats settled into a groove as the match progressed, Cauley started using different rotations both to keep Haughton off guard as well as thinking about the future.
“I’m trying to get ready for the playoffs so that we have depth,” Cauley said. “You never know what to expect, so once I felt like we had our legs under us I wanted to get different girls in and try different things so that if we’re in situations where we’re out of sorts, we have depth and have people who feel confident coming out on the court in a variety of roles.
“So, that’s why I changed up the offense for the last eight points of the game and went from a 6-2 to a 5-1 to let Bridget be the 5-1 setter, which we haven’t done much of, letting her get comfortable being an asset as a left-handed front row setter. We want to have that tool in our toolbox as well.”
Baylor Cauley led Ruston with 12 kills, and 11 digs to go along with her five service aces and 12 assists.
Bissell topped the Bearcats with 13 assists on the night.
Ruston will take a little time off for Homecoming week before playing a big road match next week.
We’re currently sitting at (No. 17 in power rankings), but we still have a lot of games left,” Cauley said. “We have a lot of tough matches left. We’ve got a little bit of a break the rest of this week. This is our only match we have this week. We scheduled it that way because of Homecoming. It’s really hard to keep a group of girls focused around Homecoming.
“And then next week we travel to play the No. 1 team in Mississippi — Jackson Academy. That’s going to be a battle for us. But I’m looking at that as a practice playoff game. We’re going to travel all day. We’re going to get there, we’re going to practice, we’re going to eat and then we’re going to play the match. That’s going to let us know what that feels like, so if we’re not in the top 15 and have to travel in round one (of the playoffs), we’ve practiced it and will hopefully know how to be mentally ready come gametime.”
And things won’t get any easier for the Bearcats after that.
“Then we have a super tough week the next week playing pretty much every night of the week except Wednesday, and that’s a battle,” Cauley said. “We would really love big crowds on that Monday and Thursday against Calvary and Benton.
“We’re going to have our Pink Out game that Monday against Calvary. I’d love to see a bunch of pink in the stands — pink shirts and pink accessories. We’re trying to steadily build our crowd to encourage these girls. They’ve done a great job and have really come so far as a team. Their chemistry is just really good.”
