The Nocona Lady Indians won their fourth straight game against City View on Tuesday to stay in second place in district play.
The Lady Indians had to work a little harder than expected to take down the Lady Mustangs, but still earned the win in straight sets.
The opening points in the first set went how it was expected for Nocona. The Lady Indians broke out to a 10-5 lead and looked like they were ready to pull away.
City View came back with its scrappy play and tied the score at 15-15, showing it was not going to lay down for Nocona.
The Lady Indians responded with Sydni Messer serving 10 straight points as the team got hot down the stretch. The Lady Mustangs had issues in serve-receive and Nocona feasted to close out the set, winning 25-15.
The second set saw the Lady Indians pick up where they left off in the first set. Nocona started up 8-2 and seemed to extend its lead the longer the set went on up 15-5.
Again, City View was not just going to lay down. With its solid defensive play that forced the Lady Indians to press into some unforced errors, the Lady Mustangs won 10 of the next 15 points to cut the lead to 20-15.
The end of the set seemed like a repeat of set one. Once City View made things a little uncomfortable down the stretch, Nocona turned it on to close out the set, winning five of the next six points for the final set score 25-16.
With one team up 2-0, the third set can sometimes be different than the previous two sets. The team leading can start to relax, leading to a lot of good momentum from the opposing team with its back against the wall. Sometimes the team that is down has no more fight left, especially if the second set was close.
While the first two sets had several instances of teams, mostly Nocona, scoring several points in a row, the third set was the most competitive of the match.
With the score tied at 10-10, the Lady Mustangs had their best stretch of the match, taking a 14-11 lead and keeping it for several points up 16-14. The Lady Indians took back control of the set winning seven of the next 10 points to lead 21-19.
While Nocona had been able to close the first two sets strong winning several points in a row, City View did not make it that easy this time closing the score within one 23-22.
The set could go either way, but the Lady Indians closed out the set in extra points winning 26-24 to win the set and the match 3-0.
Nocona next travels to Breckenridge to play at 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 13.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.