Lady Knights open playoffs with easy win

By DARIN ALLRED

Register Sports Editor

JACKSBORO — For the No. 1 ranked Lindsay High School volleyball team, each round of the Class A playoffs is another step toward their goal of winning a state championship. On Thursday, the Lady Knights took their first step in that direction with an easy 25-10, 25-9, 25-13 victory over the Ranger Lady Bulldogs in an area playoff match in Jacksboro.

With the win, the Lady Knights advance to the regional quarterfinals where they will face the Albany Lady Lions, who defeated Blue Ridge Thursday. Albany is the team that knocked Lindsay out of the playoffs a year ago.

As of Thursday night, that regional quarterfinal match was tentatively set for Tuesday night in Mineral Wells at a time to be determined.

Lindsay (32-10) made quick work of Ranger (16-14), winning the match in less than an hour thanks to aggressive play that included 42 kills.

“We’re excited because we did play our game,” Lindsay coach Bridget Anderle said afterwards. “I knew coming in that it was going to be a fairly weak team. Sometimes when I know that and when they (pointing at her players) figure it out, our game level kind of drops. We had a couple of points here and there where we didn’t get real aggressive. But yeah, we feel like this is one step, hopefully of many.”

The Lady Knights fell behind 3-1 in the first game, but they quickly got rolling thanks to a pair of kills by Allison Metzler that tied the game 4-4. Jessica Thurman then served two points including an ace and Kaylee Murphree had a kill to give Lindsay the lead.

From there, the Lady Knight front row took over and the team added some strong serving. Alyx Ethington served two points and Brenna Mlinar followed with five. During that stretch, the Lady Knights got kills from Kristin Martin and Jordan Fleitman that pushed the lead to 16-7.

It was 18-10 when Martin came to serve. She served seven-straight points including a pair of aces and Murphree and Metzler had back-to-back kills as Lindsay took game one 25-10.

Game two was much the same as it stayed tight early until a pair of late runs pushed the Lady Knights to the win.

Ashley Podratz had back-to-back kills for Ranger and Tiffaney Casey served two points to put the Lady Bulldogs up 3-2. Consecutive kills by Murphree and two points from Thurman pushed Lindsay back on top 7-4.

Later, Ethington served four points including an ace and Murphree registered another kill as the Lady Knights increased their lead to 12-5. Later, Murphree had a nice serve and Martin had a kill as Lindsay went up 15-7. Mlinar then served six-straight points including an ace and Fleitman had another kill as the lead grew to 21-7.

Down the stretch, Martin had a tip and a block and combined with Fleitman on another block as Taylor Atkins served out the game 25-9.

Lindsay never trailed in the third game. Mlinar served the first four points. Later, Martin had a kill and Murphree had a tip for a point as the lead grew to 8-3. Thurman then served two points and Ethington added three including a pair of serves that Ranger couldn’t handle to push the lead to 15-5.

K-Dee Rogers had a kill and Nikki Leath served an ace as Ranger got back within eight (15-7), but that would be as close as they would get.

Murphree had two service points and added a kill, Atkins had an ace and a kill and Martin added a service point and a kill as the Lady Knights closed out the match 25-13.

Martin finished with 17 kills, 5 blocks, 5 digs and 2 aces for Lindsay. Murphree added 15 kills, 7 blocks, 3 digs and 2 aces; Mlinar had 27 assists, 4 aces and 3 digs; Metzler had 5 kills; Fleitman had 3 kills, 2 blocks and 2 assists; Atkins had 2 kills, 8 digs and 2 aces; and Ethington had 3 aces and 2 digs.