Justin Northwest volleyball drops Arlington Lamar in four sets

While at Keller Fossil Ridge, then head coach Jennifer Chandler faced Justin Northwest the past two years in District 5-6A. So she knew the type of team she was getting when she moved from Ridge to take over the volleyball program at Northwest in January.

In her first season with the program, the Texans improved to 6-2 with a win at Arlington Lamar on Tuesday, 25-20, 25-18, 21-25, 25-11.

“We’ve been working real hard to execute some things defensively and I thought that we were able to carry some of that over today,” Chandler said.

Oakley O’Dell and Camryn Berryhill got off a pair of kills that got the Texans out to a 9-5 lead in the first set. Lamar’s Abby Wilson and the Vikings (9-2) rallied back with a kill and two aces from the middle blocker for a 13-12 lead.

The game would go back-and-forth from there with three ties. Bailey Cagle’s kill gave Northwest a 17-16 margin that the Texans wouldn’t give up. O’Dell put in an ace and Berryhill added a kill to give Northwest the 1-0 lead.

In the second set, the Texans got out fast, 4-1 and again 9-5. Cagle, a Northwestern Oklahoma State commit, got a kill and block on back-to-back points to give the Texans their largest lead of the set at 14-8. Lamar got within 17-15, but no closer.

The third set was the best of the night with six ties. Cagle again tried to dominate the net with back-to-back points for a 6-4 margin. It was tied at 10-10 when the Vikings made their push with six of the next seven points to go up 16-11.

Kayla Whetstone’s kill made it 17-13 and Wilson’s block put Lamar up 20-16. Northwest rallied to tie it at 21-21, but Lamar took a timeout and responded with the final four points to keep the game alive.

“When we have a two-game lead, we played kind of nervous and I thought in game three, Lamar made some adjustments and for us it was just about having the confidence to finish that off. They did make a nice push there in game three which I think pushed over to game four, but we have to finish those games,” Chandler said.

Northwest made its own adjustments and stepped on the pedal in the fourth game, going up 11-1 and coasting to the victory.

Berryhill, a first-team all-district pick last season, led four in double figure kills with 15 and had 16 digs. O’Dell and Cagle added 13 and 12 kills, and Analise Lucio had 10 kills, 13 digs and 43 assists. Lexi Ihrig and Piper Blake finished with 27 and 10 digs, respectively. Cagle led in blocks with 5 1/2 and O’Dell added 3 1/2.

“Offensively, we have the potential to being a very great team, it’s the support around that, the passing, the digging and the consistency to be able to utilize our offensive weapons,” Chandler said.

The Texans will play in the Northwest ISD tournament from Thursday through Saturday. Games will be played at Northwest, Byron Nelson and Eaton High School.

This story was originally published August 16, 2016 at 9:55 PM with the headline "Justin Northwest volleyball drops Arlington Lamar in four sets."