.gif)
The Columbus Lady Cardinals were crowned Area Champions on Thursday, Nov. 2, after defeating Hondo in Nixon.
The Lady Cards defeated Hondo in three straight sets to claim the Area Title and relied on their veteran leadership to get them there.
Seniors Ally Tribe, Ember Mandola and Sage Thomas along with sophomore Caylie Neisner were the driving force behind the Lady Cardinals potent offense Thursday night. Tribe had 14 kills in the playoff matchup while Mandola had 11 kills.
Thomas assisted on all of them as she added 32 assists to her impressive totals that continue to climb. Neisner had the highest number of digs in the matchup with 19 and Tribe helped her out by securing nine of her on as the Lady Cards secured the Area Championship.
The match started off as usual for the Lady Cards when they jumped out to an early lead and rode that early momentum to a huge win in the first set. The Lady Cards scored 25 points to Hondo’s six in the first set, but this was a playoff game, and the next two sets were much more competitive.
Hondo came out in the second set looking to work themselves back into the match and even things up at one set a piece. They started the set strong as the Lady Cards were a little sleepy when the set started.
They quickly woke up and went into attack mode attacking the net over and over again to erase the early Hondo lead. The Lady Cards racked up 77 total attacks at the net Thursday night with major contributions from Ally Tribe who had 21, Ember Mandola and Gracie Schobel who each had 15 and Taylor Morrow who had 14.
This type of offensive attack shifted the momentum completely in the Lady Cards’ favor in the second set. This allowed the Lady Cards to widen the gap between them and Hondo on the scoreboard and eventually led them to going up 2 sets to zero.
Finishing the set with a score of 25-15, the Lady Cards were fully in the driver’s seat and took full advantage of the momentum. They wasted no time in the third set establishing their dominant offense yet again, but Hondo was not ready for their season to end and fought until the final whistle.
Hondo scratched and clawed their way to every point they scored as their fans tried to will them to a win. Unfortunately, the Lady Cards’ offense proved to be too much for Hondo and the Lady Cards celebration was on after a 25-18 win in the third set.
The Lady Cards now find themselves in the third round of the playoffs awaiting the winner of the Randolph and Jourdanton game and a time and location to be determined.
