Lincoln County and Alamo both opened league volleyball play last weekend.
The Lynx were at Agassi Prep in Las Vegas on Thursday and had an easy time of it, sweeping the Stars in two matches. Scores were 25-12, 25-17 and 25-16, 25-12.
“We played well the first match, not so well the second match,” said coach Ken Thornock. “It’s hard to stay focused and motivated when they beat a team up.” Lincoln has beaten Agassi 14 straight times since 2008.
The Lynx then participated in the Boulder City Tournament. “We got to play some big schools,” Thornock said.
They first faced Basic of Las Vegas, losing the first game 16-20. “The girls were a little gun-shy at first,” he said, “but then realized they could play with them,” and only lost the second game 20-25.
“We played up and down at the tourney,” Thornock said, “but our main problem was we gave away a lot of points on unforced errors. We have to learn from that and have a lot we can work on.”
Their second match of the tournament was with Valley, a Division I Las Vegas school, and Lincoln won 25-20, 25-9.
The third match was with Moapa and the teams split. Scores were not available. The team finished play on Friday against Desert Oasis and won 15-7, 15-11.
Thornock said the reason the scores in that match only went to 15 was because the tournament was running about two hours behind schedule and “they didn’t want teams playing about 11 p.m. at night.”
On Saturday, Lincoln faced host Boulder City and lost 25-21, 25-15. “We had them on the ropes the first game,” he said. “Had a 20-15 lead, but we had several unforced errors and they overtook us.” The second game, he said, the girls played hard, but had gotten too far behind.
Lincoln closed the tournament with a loss to Legacy 25-19, 25-16. Thornock said Legacy has a 6-2 girl, and another at 6-1. “One of the better teams we played over the weekend. But we found we could play with them, and stayed close. We learned if we believe we can compete, we can.”
Lincoln (10-6, 4-0) played at Lake Mead on Tuesday this week and took over the league lead. Chesnee Harding recorded seven assists, six digs, three kills and two aces, and Easton Tingey had eight assists, three kills and two blocks as the Lynx beat the Eagles, 25-13, 25-22 in the opener.
Kayla Matthews provided three kills, three aces and two blocks, and Cameron Lloyd had five kills and four aces for Lincoln County.
In the second match, Harding had 13 assists, four digs and two aces, and Matthews notched six kills and two digs in a 25-23, 25-20 Lincoln County win.
This Friday the Lynx have their last road game at White Pine, and enjoy the whole month of October with home matches, leading to the postseason.
In the meantime, Pahranagat Valley (9-6), 1-0) opened league play at home with Tonopah last Friday, winning in straight sets 25-8, 25-17, 25-15. Karley Whipple had 11 kills, Maddie Harris seven kills and Alyson Egbert five kills. Allyse Frehner dished out 22 assists.
This week the Panthers had a home match with Calvary Chapel on Thursday and a league meeting with Beatty on Friday, and travel to league newcomer Quest Academy on Sept. 30.
