Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Lady Warrior Alexa Caballero hits the ball toward the Lady Bulldogs in a Sept. 13 match against Lovell at Worland High School.
WORLAND - Moving over to the 3A West has brought some changes for the Worland High School volleyball team with new opponents. Another of those changes happens this weekend as the Lady Warriors will be in Lander on Friday and Saturday for the 3A West conference duals.
Last week Worland went 1-1, beating Buffalo 3-1 (25-21, 25-17, 25-27, 25-19) and losing to Cody 3-0 (25-16, 25-17, 25-18). Against Cody, the Lady Warriors had a hard time containing Filly hitter Paige Powell.
"Give Cody credit they have a Division I-level caliber player and we played a step behind, but she also played very well," said WHS volleyball coach Brittany Miller.
The conference dual brings all of the teams in the 3A West to Lander and allows for each team to get a look at the other division's teams. For example, Worland is in the 3A Northwest division and will play against the four Southwest division teams (Big Piney, Lyman, Mountain View and Pinedale) Friday and Saturday.
The Lady Warriors will see teams they'll likely face at the 3A West regional meet on Oct. 26-27 in Mountain View. Miller wants to use this tournament as a means to focus on improving on their side of the net, rather than getting caught up in team-specific game plans.
"They do the conference duals for less travel and you play the other quadrant," said Miller. "We still have so much to work on our side of the net and our focus is going to be Worland volleyball. We need to work on our serving and passing, against Buffalo we served and passed well but against Cody, our serving dropped to 86 percent. We have to serve and pass really well all weekend."
The Lady Warriors start the conference duals at Lander Valley High School on Friday,against Big Piney at noon in the auxiliary gym and at 3 p.m. face No. 1 Lyman, also in the auxiliary gym. Saturday's duals will start at 9 a.m. against Mountain View at the Lander Middle School Starrett gym; at noon they play Pinedale at the Lander Middle School.
The Lyman Lady Eagles are currently the No. 1-ranked 3A team and have yet to drop a match all season with a perfect 20-0 record. Having a shot at the state's best team is going to be fun but Miller believes her team will be more focused on the new offensive schemes going in this week, rather than the hype of taking on 3A's top-ranked team.
"We're putting new things in all week and all of our feedback will be those new installments into the offense. I think that will shift the mindset naturally, rather who we're facing at the time," said Miller.
Before the conference duals, Worland hosts the Thermopolis Lady Bobcats at 7 p.m. on Thursday at Worland High School.
The match against the Lady 'Cats is where Miller wants her team to start their week strong and be locked in from start to finish.
"We're really focused on the word undefeated. That doesn't mean going undefeated but it's about not being complacent at any time. Not being complacent from our warmup to every time we touch the ball it has to be purposeful and with intent," said Miller. "We've talked about even if we send something out of system it has to be with intent because we're setting up the next step from there."
Added Miller, "We're bringing in a speaker this week who ran in the Boston Marathon to really focus on that. Against Thermopolis we want to see that mentality of not being complacent, setting up our shots well when we're out of system and being purposeful."
