Volleyball Fayetteville Hits Wall Against FS Southside

FAYETTEVILLE -- Life in the 7A-West Conference had been rather easy through the first five league matches for Fayetteville. All that changed in a hurry Tuesday night.

Fort Smith Southside, defending Class 7A champions, had an answer for everything thrown its way by Fayetteville, and delivered much more than the Lady Bulldogs could handle. The result was a surprising one-sided affair at Bulldog Arena, as the Lady Rebs cruised to a straight sets, 25-16, 25-22, 25-18 victory.

"Fayetteville has a real strong team," Southside coach Steve Haaser said. "I felt like this would be a real tell-tale match to see if we could bounce back from last Thursday with Bentonville. And I was real happy with the way we responded.

"We played real solid and just played good volleyball all around."

Fayetteville, dominant at times at the net offensively in previous conference matches with its advantage in size, had no such luck against a great defense from Southside. The Lady Bulldogs could find no rhythm out of the gate, had too many unforced errors and were forced to play from behind against the determined Lady Rebs (9-3, 4-2) the entire night.

"We have a great offense, but we spent most of the night responding to their serves," Fayetteville coach Jessica Phelan said. "That's something we'll have to work on. To beat a good team, we'll have to chip away at that serve and pass game.

"Southside played great defense tonight, they served really well and they did what they needed to do to win."

Fayetteville (12-7, 5-1) had its chances in the second and third games. The Lady Bulldogs rallied to a 19-19 tie in the second set, before three consecutive Southside points helped the Lady Rebs pull away. Then after Southside built a 7-1 lead in the third game, Fayetteville stormed back to tie the game, 10-10, before again tailing off down the stretch.

"I thought our defense did improve in game three, and we were able to extend some rallies," Phelan said. "That was good to see. And we just obviously need to work on finishing points."

Southside had to play much of the final game without senior hitter Maddie Pressley, who fell hard to the Bulldog Arena court and had to be helped off the floor. Pressley appeared to suffer an injury to her left knee and needed crutches following the match.

"That's a girl that's been hurt before and she had come back," Haaser said. "We're hoping she's alright, but it didn't look real good."

Abbie Kathol had 18 digs and eight kills and Hadley Spresser 17 digs for Fayetteville, while Haley Warner added 11 kills. Southside was led by Mackenzie King with 15 kills, Sarita Stegall with 34 assists and Mia Robbins with four blocks.

The Lady Bulldogs visit Bentonville on Thursday.

Sports on 09/24/2014

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