FAYETTEVILLE -- Fort Smith Northside came with a strong game plan and a determined will for its volleyball match with 7A-West Conference power Fayetteville on Tuesday. But after putting up a strong fight in the first set, the Lady Bears couldn't keep up with a more talented and well-balanced Fayetteville attack in a 25-23, 25-14, 25-14 sweep for the Lady'Dogs at Bulldog Arena.
"We had too many unforced errors in game one and we cleaned it up after that," Fayetteville coach Jessica Phelan said. "The thing Northside did was they handled our serve. They challenged us, and I was glad we responded and finished out in game one, and then on our side of the net we were able to clean it up in game two and game three."
The Lady Bulldogs (4-1, 2-0 7A-West) could never quite pull away from Northside in game one. Despite building an early 12-6 lead behind solid play from Abbie Kathol both with the serve and at the net, Fayetteville allowed several brief Lady Bears scoring spurts which sent the set back and forth to the tight finish.
Northside (1-5, 0-2) would even take a brief 21-20 lead on Fayetteville before Hadley Spresser came up with back-to-back kills, followed by a return from Ella May Powell and a finishing score by Spresser to help close out the 25-23 win.
Northside appeared out of steam after the hard-fought first set didn't go its way. Fayetteville was overpowering with Faith Waitsman and Haley Warner up front, and got bight contributions on defense from Olivia Wales to close out the Lady Bears in convincing fashion.
"We need that solid performance across the board because people are focused on Haley," Phelan said. "Faith had a really good game and when we can get her one on one, that's a pretty good scoring opportunity for us."
Spresser finished an all-around big night with 10 digs, seven kills and four aces. Powell had 29 assists and four blocks and both Waitsman and Warner had 10 kills each for Fayetteville.
The Lady'Dogs visit Springdale Har-Ber on Thursday.
Sports on 09/09/2015