The ride came to an end for the Prairie Valley Lady Bulldogs on Friday as the program entered new territory playing in their first regional tournament at Midlothian High School.
Facing the tournament’s eventual winner Blum, the Lady Bulldogs’ nerves led to many mistakes contributing to the Lady Cats earning the win in straight sets.
The first set started favorably in Prairie Valley’s way. While Blum as a program had been to the regional tournament as recently as last year, more than half of its team were newer underclassmen.
The Lady Bulldogs led 7-3 early in the set as the Lady Cats nerves allowed for several easy points. Unfotunatley, Blum started to settle down and came back to cut into the lead to 8-7.
Prairie Valley was stuck in an unfavorable rotation that did not afford great offensive looks unless it executed serve-receive cleanly. The Lady Bulldogs struggled during this stretch, sending many non threatening free balls over the Lady Cats could take advantage of. As the points mounted, uncharacteristic unforced errors started to happen for Prairie Valley
This went on for the next 10 points as Blum won nine of the points to not only take the lead, but grab a firm 16-9 lead. While the Lady Bulldogs played better, the mistakes kept piling on while the Lady Cats limited theirs.
The lead kept growing as Blum took set one 25-15.
The second set was more competitive for the majority of the set. Prairie Valley needed to bounce back to take the taste out of the first set. The Lady Bulldogs held a small one or two point lead in the opening 20 points and eventually led 14-11.
It was here when things started to go wrong again, with similar issues creeping up. The Lady Cats not only tied the score up at 15-15, but won the next five points to take a big 20-15 lead.
Prairie Valley tried to course correct winning three of the next five points, but Blum closed things out strong. The Lady Cats won the second set 25-18 before the Lady Bulldogs could build any sort of momentum heading into the third set.
The beginning of the third set saw some of the emotions from Prairie Valley start to affect the team as they fell behind 7-3. The defining way the Lady Cats had won in the end of the first and second sets made the prospect of beating them three straight sets seem impossible.
With it possibly being the final game of the season, those thoughts were hard to keep out of player’s heads and got louder as the set wore on and the lead grew. Some JV players even got subbed in as the unforced errors from some varsity players started to add up.
The lead grew to double digits 18-7 and Blum made sure it would not give Prairie Valley any hope as points came few and far between for the Lady Bulldogs down the stretch. The Lady Cats won 25-10 to win the match. They would eventually beat Abbott the next day in straight sets to move on to the state tournament.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.