The Lady Lions volleyball team experienced back to back losses with a four-set loss to the Central Arkansas Sugar Bears on Saturday.
Although Central Arkansas is currently ranked no. 1 in the conference, the Lady Lions put up a close fight, scoring 21 in the third set and 22 in the fourth.
“We prepared really hard yesterday. We watched a lot of film, and we had this big study on it, and we had a game plan, but we didn’t practice yesterday because we wanted to have all our energy to come out today. Be really rested. I think it helps a little bit,” said Courtney Donald, senior middle blocker.
Donald posted 17 kills with a .452 average. Donald also took on a more defensive role than usual in an attempt to keep the Sugar Bears off balance.
“This is the second time we played these guys, and they were really focused on blocking me, so we set the other girls more because it gave them more open blocks and then that gave me time to focus on my blocking,” said Donald.
Despite the hard fought loss, head coach Geno Frugoli is optimistic that the experience will prove helpful in allowing the team to advance its strategy for potential games in the future.
“We played them once before at their place, and we lost in five games. It was really close so we took some of that film,” said Frugoli. “Overall we were competitive today, but just not quite there yet. We’re going to use it as a stepping stone.”
Frugoli noted the possibility of his team making the eighth seed of the tournament.
“If we make the conference tournament as the eighth seed, we’re probably going to play this team in the playoffs. So the more we can plan and see how they play, the more things we can try to better for that,” said Frugoli.
On Tuesday, Oct. 23, the Lady Lions will have a chance to redeem themselves and get back on track at Lamar.
“We’ve got to go into Lamar, and that’s a hostile environment, and they’re right below us trying to battle. I think we just have got to draw confidence from this and not let it tear us down, and just say, ‘Hey, we hung with the best in the conference,'” said Frugoli. “So if we can do that I think we’ll have a better chance of moving forward.”