Lady Savage Heat storms tournament

The Hot Springs Lady Savage Heat Volleyball team defeated Victor 3-1 in their first game of the season Friday and then they turned around and won a volleyball tournament that took place in Drummond Saturday.

“I thought for our first outing, we did really, really well,” Head Coach Bonnie Franklin said.

Franklin said that most teams had already played a two to three matches already and since Friday was their first, she felt they performed very strongly.

The Savage Heat defeated in four games with the scores being, 25-14, 25-9, 20-25, 25-9.

“I was very pleased with our opening match,” Franklin said. “All of the players stood out, which was just really neat.”

While Franklin said all of the players really stood out there were several players who really contributed a lot to the team.

Senior Matea DePoe had 17 kills along with one block. Junior MacKenzie Wood had 26 assists, one block and eight consecutive aces, which Franklin said was “just amazing.” Jordon Fisher, a senior, had 10 digs and a block and Franklin said that she was really “coming on strong.”

“Every single player contributed to the victory and that was just great,” she said.

On Saturday the team traveled to Drummond to participate in their tournament. Franklin said that the morning was done with a pool play, with the outcome of those games deciding the bracket for the actual tournament play in the afternoon. For the pool play and the regular tournament it was done in a best of three format.

In their first pool play game Hot Springs beat St. Regis in two games, with scores of 15-6 and 15-9. They then went on to defeat Drummond 15-4 and 15-8, and then beat Lincoln 15-5 and 15-8.

Because they were undefeated in their pool play Hot Springs was able to be the No. 1 seed on their side of the bracket with Charlo the No. 1 seed on the other side of the bracket.

Hot Springs played Drummond first in the actual tournament play and won in two games. The scores were 25-15 and 25-23. They then moved on to play Twin Bridges and defeated them 25-15 and 25-9. Hot Springs met up with Charlo in the championship game as the two No. 1 seeds would battle it out for the tournament championship. Hot Springs defeated Charlo in two games with the scores being 25-16 and 25-19.

“We made a clean sweep of the weekend,” Franklin said. “Ultimately we were winners.”

Franklin said that she is so pleased with how her team performed. “When you practice against your [junior varsity], you don’t know how you’ll be against other varsity players,” she said. “Obviously we were able to perform really well.”

Franklin said that her team was hitting and serving great and that as of right now there isn’t a whole lot she’s going to change in practice to prepare for their upcoming games.

“We’re going to continue to work on some passing and we’re going to work on some hitting and setting and practice coverage,” she said. “Basically the stuff that we have been working on.”

The Lady Savage Heat played last night at Alberton and as of press time their scores were not available. Their next game is this Saturday at 5:30 p.m. in Hot Springs.