The Prairie Valley Lady Bulldogs season came to an end on Tuesday night in a way that was a heartbreaker.
District foe Bryson won the match 3-2 in a game where the winner would go to the regional tournament. The Cowgirls also pulled a come back at the Lady Bulldogs expense to do it.
Prairie Valley came into the match with plenty of recent history with Bryson. The two have been in the same district the last two seasons. Last year the team’s split their district games and were co-district champions before playing a third time to for the one seed where the Cowgirls won.
This year, the Lady Bulldogs were dealing with injuries to start off district play and lost at Bryson the first time around in straight sets.
The second matchup saw a healthier Prairie Valley team take the Cowgirls to five sets where Bryson pulled off the win.
That match was several weeks ago and the Lady Bulldogs were at full strength, coming off several dominating playoff performances and looking to pull off an upset against a familiar opponent.
The match did not start well for Prairie Valley in the first set. The Cowgirls serving allowed them to build an early 7-3 lead. The Lady Bulldogs cleaned up their serve receive and played solid the rest of the set.
This allowed them to slowly catch up to a Bryson team that was making several hitting errors every time it was trying to be aggressive.
Down 14-11, Prairie Valley went on an 11-2 run that built its lead to 22-16. Despite the Cowgirls turning things around in the final few points, the Lady Bulldogs held on to win 25-21 and take the early lead.
The start of the second set was more competitive, but Prairie Valley slowly built up its lead. The Lady Bulldogs won five straight five-point exchanges 3-2 as the score was 15-10.
Bryson came back to tie the score at 18-18 and the two teams played point-to-point for the next six points. Still tied at 21-21, Prairie Valley went on a 3-0 run to set up set point 24-21.
The Cowgirls won the next two points to make the score 24-23 before the Lady Bulldogs were able to win the next point, winning the set 25-23 and take a 2-0 lead.
While Prairie Valley had held on to win the previous set at the end, Bryson had started to clean up the myriad of hitting errors in its comeback attempt that was giving the Lady Bulldogs points at the end of long rallies.
Prairie Valley had played well so far and had mostly profited off of the Cowgirl errors and some good placed tips at the net.
The third set never saw the Lady Bulldogs get into the set. Their serve-receive had only had a few moments of shakiness in the first and second set, but the opening points of the third set saw the team struggle bad.
Down 5-0, the team played the next 10 points even with the score 10-5. After that Bryson ran away with the set as the lead grew bigger and bigger.
The margin was its biggest with Prairie Valley down 21-9, but the team won some points late to make the final score 25-14 not quite as bad. The Cowgirls cut the lead to 2-1.
The Lady Bulldogs would have to shake off the sour taste of the third set if there was any chance of it not bleeding over into the fourth set. Unfortunately, it did at the start.
Bryson led 10-5 and 15 points later led 19-11 and was looking like it was going to waltz into the fifth set with ease.
Prairie Valley made a furious comeback. The Lady Bulldogs went 8-2 to cut the lead to 21-19 before the Cowgirls called a time out thanks to some good serving and solid play like they had been playing in the first two sets.
Following the time out however, Bryson played like a different team on a mission. The Cowgirls not only broke the next serve, but closed out the set by winning the next four points to make it 25-19. The score was tied at 2-2.
Despite Prairie Valley not playing great in the last two sets, a fifth set in a high pressure match changes everything. Momentum does not always matter since the set is mentally different for both teams.
Played only to 15 instead of the usual 25, there are less points available therefore meaning comebacks are less likely to happen as each point carries with it more weight than any from the previous four sets. A bad start can end teams emotionally.
Unfortunately, that is what happened for the Lady Bulldogs. Bryson’s early lead grew to 9-1 and hope for a win was little to none.
Prairie Valley played the remaining points exchanging points with the Cowgirls, which was not enough to come back from the big deficit. Bryson won the set 15-6 and the match 3-2.

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