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After much hard work and some close losses the MCS Lady Panthers finally put one in the win column this past week. With a busy schedule of four games in four nights the Lady Panthers were able to come away with two victories against the Marissa Lady Comets and the Lady Tigers of Dupo. The Lady Panthers nearly came away with a third victory as they pushed the Columbia Lady Eagles to a third game for the match but cam up just short on their bid for an upset.
On Wednesday evening the Lady Panthers traveled to Bluffview Elementary School in Dupo to face the Lady Tigers. While struggling to find wins themselves the Lady Tigers are a much-improved squad over last year and have an abundance of talent coming up from the grade school ranks. The two teams seemed to match up well physically with good athletes on both sides of the net. The MCS Lady Panthers did seem to have an advantage in terms of experience but the Lady Tigers were scrappy and fought hard in both games. The two games were very similar in how they each played out as was indicated by the scores.
The Lady Panthers seemed to have an edge on the Lady Tigers at the net. Sarah Wessell and Nikki Dunn repeatedly made good plays at the net not just in terms of dinks and kills but also in blocks and forcing Lady Tigers hitters to alter shots or force errors.
The Lady Tigers showed that their strength Wednesday night was serving. Lady Tigers servers served precisely and with power. The result was a number of missed balls and poor returns by the Lady Panthers. Dupo servers Tabitha Putnam, Mikayla Self and Brooke Borden were able to keep scoring runs alive and kept the ball in the MCS back court and the Lady Panthers made their share of errors to help Dupo’s cause.
In each game though when it got to be crunch time, the Lady Panthers stepped up and made the plays necessary to win the game. Their experience and net play instrumental in helping them win. The Lady Panthers’ Anna Fishbein came up big for MCS again and again with saves, digs and even some strong serving down the stretch, especially in the second game.
The MCS Lady Panthers will close out the regular season next week at Waterloo on Tuesday, March 9th and at home versus Freeburg on Thursday, March 11th. The March 11th contest will also be ‘Parents’ Night’ as the 8th Grade players and parents are recognized prior to the start of the game. The following week will be the season ending Cahokia Conference Tournament held at Red Bud this year March 13th – 19th.
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