BENTONVILLE -- Sadie Pate has quickly emerged as the player that should get the ball when Bentonville's volleyball team needs a big point in crucial times.
The junior outside hitter delivered a game-high 17 kills, including two thunderous shots to end the second set, as the Lady Tigers remained unbeaten in 7A-West Conference play with a 3-0 victory Tuesday over Rogers Heritage in Tiger Arena.
"Sadie's been on a roll lately," Bentonville coach Michelle Smith said after the 25-13, 25-23, 25-17 decision. "She's one of our go-to players, and we rely on her heavily."
Pate, who had 28 kills in Bentonville's win at Fort Smith Southside, had eight kills in the second set alone, and she recorded kills for the Lady Tigers' final four points. She provided the proper touch with a tip over the Heritage front line to give Bentonville (18-2-2, 6-0) a 22-20 lead.
When Heritage (7-7-1, 2-4) came back to tie the second set at 22 and again at 23, Pate turned to her power game. She fired two hard shots for final points, both from the left side of the net.
"We knew coming into the match that Heritage had a strong team," Smith said. "We couldn't take them for granted, and the girls did a good job.
"I'll give Heritage credit for those last two sets. That's the Heritage team that we know. We knew they would wake up and come alive, and that's exactly what they did."
Bentonville never let Heritage get established in the first set and jumped out to a 12-5 lead following Kayton Coffee's ace. The Lady War Eagles couldn't get any closer than four points, and the Lady Tigers sealed the set by scoring eight of the last 10 points.
The same was almost true in the third set as Bentonville took a quick 6-1 lead on an ace by Pate, then went on to build a 20-7 cushion and yet another kill by Pate. Heritage, however, made things interesting when it mounted a 7-1 spurt and pulled within 23-17 before the Lady Tigers put the match away.
"When your outside hitter has only five kills, you can tell that they completely knocked us out of our offense," Heritage coach Sarah Miser said. "They had us on our heels on hitting. They're aggressive hitters and aggressive servers.
"It felt like we were playing 'just try to get the ball over the net' constantly instead of running our offense. It was just get the ball up and get it back over. Against a team like Bentonville, you can't do that with the hitters they have. They'll end up putting the ball away, which they did."
Anna LeDuc added 12 kills for Bentonville and shared the team lead of nine digs with Savannah King and Coffee. Elleson Dunagin led Heritage with five kills and nine digs, while Alye Darter also had nine digs.
The win gives Bentonville sole possession of first place in the 7A-West heading into Thursday's home match against Fayetteville, which suffered its first loss against Fort Smith Southside. Heritage returns to action Thursday with a home match against Rogers High.
Sports on 09/24/2014