Outlaws claim volleyball league crown

The Lady Outlaws wrapped up a perfect league season with a sweep over the Tigers at Junction City on Tuesday, October 21.

Sisters won with scores of 25-8, 25-18, and 25-20. Miki McFadden has coached the Outlaws for the past three years, and each year they have easily claimed top league honors.

Sisters earned an easy first-set win over the Tigers. Junction City had trouble with their pass and had a hard time playing defense.

The Outlaws made serving errors, hit the ball out of bounds, and hit the ball in the net at the start of both the second and third sets, which resulted in a slow start. Sisters pulled it together, won both sets, and recorded the sweep. The Tigers really picked up their game and gave Sisters good competition, which included hard play and long rallies.

McFadden said, "The Junction City coach came up to me after the match and told me that their team played their best game and rose to the occasion after being killed in the first round. It was a great match and they made us work hard."

Nila Lukens, Alex Hartford, and Jessie Brigham all had several strings of serves that sparked the Outlaws and extended their lead at different times in the match. Lukens was 10/10 at the service line with two aces, Hartford went 19/20 with three aces, and Brigham was 12/13 with one ace.

Lukens was on fire for the Outlaws, and led the team with 14 kills. She picked up everything that came her way and served tough. Hawley Harrer had eight kills on the night and dished out 13 assists. Brigham had nine digs in the match.

McFadden said, "It's just a great feeling to go 10-0. The girls played hard no matter who we played. As we look ahead, the games are going to get a lot tougher really quickly. We're going to have to work on our serving, our passing, and our defense, specifically getting our block together and playing defense behind our block."

Lukens is excited about the up-coming playoffs.

"I'm very proud of how we've been able to execute this year," said Lukens. "Sometimes it was hard to keep up our intensity against some of the other league teams, but overall we did and we strived to keep our level of competition throughout the season. We're excited to go into the playoffs, and as a team we're going to practice hard and prepare to compete against the higher-level teams we're going to have to face."