Prairie Valley
The Prairie Valley Lady Bulldogs took down 3A Whitesboro’s JV team at home on Tuesday night.
The Lady Bulldogs won 2-0, with the second set being more competitive after easily winning the first set.
Prairie Valley was coming off a second place finish at its first tournament in Electra. With an experienced core of seniors, the team has started the season well.
The first 10 points were neck and neck, but once the Lady Bulldogs started rolling the Whitesboro JV team collapsed. A string of hot serving and solid play allowed Prairie Valley to win dominantly 25-9.
With a set in the can, Coach Belinda Lloyd started focusing on getting some of her lesser experienced players into the game in certain situations.
Initially the Lady Bulldogs fell behind 7-3, but quickly came back to tie the score up at 10-10 and 15-15. Despite the competitive back and forth, it always felt like Prairie Valley was going to get its stuff together when it counted.
Nursing a 21-19 lead in the final stretch, the Lady Bulldogs closed on a 4-1 run to win the set 25-20 and the match 2-0. With the match being against a JV team, it was only a best of three instead of the usual best of five.

Nocona
The Nocona Lady Indians hosted Iowa Park on Tuesday and won a competitive match.
The Lady Indians won 3-1 as the middle sets proved to be the tightest part of the game.
Coming off a second place finish in the silver bracket at its last tournament, Nocona was hoping to pick up a win heading into their hosted tournament this weekend.
The first set went the Lady Indians way as they won 25-18. The second set went into extra points and the Lady Hawks won the set 28-26 to tie the match at 1-1.
The third set was another competitive one, but Nocona took it 25-22 to go up 2-1. Not wanting to give Iowa Park hope for a come back to force a fifth set, the Lady Indians won the fourth set in convincing fashion 25-15 to seal up the match 3-1.

Saint Jo
The Saint Jo Lady Panthers came up just short of pulling off a comeback in a match at Garner on Tuesday night.
The Lady Longhorns won the fifth and final set to close out the match 3-2, but not before the Lady Panthers won the previous two to get the game to that point.
The first two sets were neck and neck throughout. The type where neither team looked like the better one except the scoreboard demanded that one be declared the winner.
Garner won both sets by the smallest of margins 26-24 and 25-23 to go up 2-0.
A lot of teams would have folded after coming up just short not just once, but twice. Instead, Saint Jo buckled down and started to grind back.
The third set proved almost as close as the first two. In the end, the Lady Panthers were able to close out the set more definitively and won 25-22.
The fourth set saw Saint Jo get the lead and never let it go as it pulled away for the first time in the match. The Lady Panthers won 25-19 to tie the score at 2-2 and force a fifth and final set.
Fifth sets are a different beast than the rest of the match comes before it. Even with all of the momentum Saint Jo had coming in, that was thrown out the window entering set five.
With it being the first to 15 instead of 25, every scored point and every lead feels multiplied.
It was close, but Garner pulled out the win in set five 15-11 to be named the victors 3-2.

Forestburg
The Forestburg Lady Horns had to rework themselves on the fly in their match at Sacred Heart on Tuesday.
The Lady Tigers won 3-1 against the Lady Horns, but with the circumstances Forestburg would take that result.
It was the first game for Forestburg following two players quitting the team and another that was out for the game due to family issues.
The Lady Horns did come out and probably surprised everyone, including themselves, by taking the first set 25-18. Unfortunately the good times did not last forever.
Sacred Heart won the next three sets 25-19, 25-22 and 25-17. Ultimately, more work is still needed to be done with Forestburg’s new lineup.

Missing scores
The Bowie News did not receive scores from Bellevue and Bowie. Gold-Burg did not have a game earlier this week.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News. To see pictures from the Prairie Valley match, click here https://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=bnews1&AID=6865521&T=1