The Pampa Lady Harvesters (19-9) dominated Childress on Tuesday night as they swept the Lady Cats 3-0 (25-13, 25-16, 25-12) on a night where they celebrated their lone senior Haley Fossett.
“That’s the best I’ve seen us play all year, by far. I feel like we are finally getting used to each other and gelling as a team since we have all of our injured players back,” Head Coach Kaylee Samulowitz said.
“I thought Maecie Hawthorne ran our offense really well. She got all of our hitters in really good positions and to me that was the difference from our previous matches to tonight.”
The first set started with Pampa leading 5-1 with three kills from junior Mikalie Floyd. It became more of the traditional back-and-forth contest until the Lady Harvesters began to pull away with three straight kills from freshman Mazi Smith to help Pampa pull away at 13-9.
The Lady Harvesters went on to a 10-2 dominant run filled with a kills from Smith and Floyd, errors from Childress and capped off with an ace from junior Ariel Lacher. The Lady Harvesters went on to take the first set 25-13.
The Lady Harvesters picked up where they left off in the second set with kills from Fossett and Floyd (including an ace) to give Pampa the 7-3 lead.
Fossett later took over the set with three kills, including an ace from the three-year varsity player as Pampa continued to lead 12-6.
“She (Haley Fossett) brings consistency and is one of our hardest workers,” Samulowitz said. “She is a great leader, stays positive and is the best passer we have on our team. She’s all over the place and brings the energy on defense. We’re really going to miss her and she had a really good game tonight.”
Floyd, Lacher and junior Hallie Hawthorne continued to pour on the points in the second set as Pampa doubled up Childress at 18-9. Childress tried to battle back into the set but kills from Fossett and junior Reagan Dyer made it a 22-15 Pampa lead.
The Lady Harvesters took the second set 25-16.
The third set started as the Mikalie Floyd Show as Pampa jumped out to an 8-0 lead with four of those kills coming from the junior. Childress got on the board but a defensive block from Floyd and Lacher made it 11-2 Pampa.
Lacher and Smith were major cogs in the lead later in the set as Pampa extended their lead to 18-8. The Lady Harvesters stayed in control of the set and Pampa went on to win 25-12.
The Lady Harvesters will host Randall on Friday at 4:30 p.m. ahead of the football game also against the Raiders at 7 p.m.
“They are really good this year. Last year they came here and we played really well against them but they beat us,” Samulowitz said. “I’m hoping we can put up a fight against them again. But this game is really for us to work on the things we need to work on for Dumas the next Saturday. We are trying to improve the things we need to improve on.”
Stat round-up
Mikalie Floyd had 16 kills, two aces and nine digs; Mazi Smith had 14 kills; Haley Fossett had four kills, an ace and 13 digs; Valeri Anguiano had two assists and 13 digs; Maecie Hawthorne had a kill, 34 assists and three digs; Hallie Hawthorne had two kills and two digs; Ariel Lacher had three kills, two aces and 10 digs and Reagan Dyer had a kill and an ace; Lesli Salazar had two digs.
