Lady Cardinals Season Ends In See Saw Battle

Last week the Soda Springs Cardinals traveled to Malad to compete in the district tournament.  In that round of the tournament the Cardinals were set to face off against the Declo Hornets.  The two teams split the regular season matches each winning on their home court.  In the match up in Declo the Cardinals fell in an incredible five set battle.  When the teams met in Soda Springs the Cardinals won in just three sets.  Each team had already suffered a loss in the district tournament so Thursday’s match was a win or go home situation for both.  

The first set started with the Lady Cardinals showing lots of energy.  Soda Springs quickly took command of the set and jumped out to a 12-3 lead forcing a Hornet timeout.  Out of the timout the Cardinals continued to hold a substantial lead but hit a bit of a wall when they reached the score of 19-8.  Declo went on a small run scoring five straight points and Soda decided to call a timeout of their own to settle things down and regain some composure.  The Cardinals did finally close out set one with a victory of 25-16 but seemed to have lost some of their early swagger.

In the second set the Lady Cards seemed to get back on track a little once again taking an early lead and forcing a Declo timeout.  With Soda Springs leading 9-3 coming out of the timeout Declo played with more urgency and the lead quickly got cut to just a single point at 10-9.  This would cause a Cardinal timeout.  The next several points went back and forth with several ties.  Eventually Declo gained a one point advantage at 16-17 and the Cardinals would not be able to get any closer through the remainder of the set losing set two 18-25.

In the third set the two teams seemed as evenly matched as they ever had been with several lead changes and ties through the first half of the set.  Unfortunately, the Hornets would gain just enough of an advantage at that point to build the lead to 16-22.  The Cardinals made a valiant effort at the end to try to get back into the game but eventually dropped set three 20-25.

The Cardinals now faced elimination in the fourth set.  The determined Cardinal girls came out into the fourth set with a flurry of scoring and dominated the entire set.  Their largest lead of the set came on the set point where the Cardinals won with an impressive 25-10 score.

This took us to the fifth and final set of the match.  The Cardinals were quickly brought down off of their high of winning the last set, soon finding themselves trailing 0-4.  Soda Springs was not able to regain its footing after that and was never able to overcome that four point deficit eventually losing 10-15 and getting eliminated from the tournament.

Despite the early end to the season the Lady Cardinals had a terrific season with a handful of thrilling matches.  They lose three seniors to graduation but should retain a solid core of girls to come back next season and contend for a district title.