North Putnam places third in Western Boone invite

DOVER -- The North Putnam Cougar volleyball team, coming off an impressive win against Cloverdale earlier in the week, traveled to Western Boone and participated in the Western Boone Volleyball invitational on Saturday.

The Cougars placed third out of four teams. Their losses came against the Lawrence Central Bears and Western Boone Stars. Their lone win came against the Faith Christian Eagles.

"I was glad we got to do this," North Putnam coach Brandy Dickson said. "I want the girls to see that we can be competitive with higher-level teams."

The Cougars came into the Saturday morning tournament as the severe underdog since all of the teams in the tournament are class 3A or higher except for North Putnam, which is a 2A school.

In the first match of the day the Cougars took on the Bears. NPHS got off to a slow start and did not really have a shot to get back into the game as they lost 25-11, but the second set was much better for the Cougars. North Putnam started hot, leading 5-2 early in the set.

The Lawrence Central battled back to take a 6-5 lead but the Cougars took that away quickly and led until the Bears tied it back up at 18. North Putnam gained another lead at 23-21 but the Bears showed their experience with four seniors on the court and took the set 26-24 and the match 2-0.

There were lots of positives against the larger school, though, as senior Bethany Wiatt led the team in digs with six and not far behind was sophomore Raegan Bowling with five. The team was led in kills by sophomore Adri Millican with three.

In the second match the Cougars took on the Western Boone Stars and played better than in the meeting earlier this year. North Putnam lost this matchup 25-13, 25-12. Both sophomore Taylor Nauert and Millican led the team with four kills, Wiatt and Bowling led with five digs and six digs respectively.

The officials were calling the game very tight, something the Cougars weren't used to.

"The officials did call a much tighter game than we are used too but honestly he is a very good official," Dickson said. "We had some calls that got the girls flustered. ... Of all of them I only disagreed with one call."

The third and final game of the day was the first-ever meeting with Faith Christian. The Cougars played impressively and won their only match of the day 25-21, 13-25, 15-12.

NPHS won easily in set one but the second set proved a tougher task. The Cougars were up 12-8 midway through until they went cold and allowed the Eagles to go on a 17-1 run to take the set and tie the match at 1-1. The third set was total control by the Cougars.

North Putnam got off to a 5-1 lead and thought that it would run away with the game. The Eagles thought otherwise, coming back to take an 11-8 lead. After a couple aces and a few kills the Cougars regained the lead 13-12 and rode to victory scoring the final two points and won the match.

"I felt like we didn't play very well in the third game, but I will give them credit, they stepped up and played well in the third set," Dickson said.

Bowling played phenomenal, adding seven digs to lead the team on the day with 18 total. Junior Kaitlin Mindiola had seven kills in the final set but the day's leader went to Nauert with 11. The team was led in blocks by Millican with eight.

The backline trio of junior Shay Lucas, Bowling and Wiatt, plus the girls that subbed in for defense, played wonderfully. Dickson said they are much improved over the first of the year.

"They were awesome. They got to things that in the beginning of the season we would not have gotten too. Our defense has improved tremendously and we worked on that a lot this week," Dickson said. "Some balls are the blockers responsibility and that sometimes makes the back row look bad."

The Cougars placed third behind Western Boone (3-0, first), and Lawrence Central (2-1, second) but in front of Faith Christian (0-3, fourth). This invitational was a good test for the Cougars going forward as they had high level competition and it showed.

"At times I thought we were very competitive. I feel like we played a lot better against Western Boone than we did in the regular season," Dickson said. "I want them to see that there is a higher level of competition out there and hopefully it motivates them to want to keep improving. They have been working hard all year."

At Western Boone
Game 1
North Putnam.............11 24
Lawrence Central.........25 26