SLIDELL — Slidell’s Lady Tigers had two District 4-I games on their schedule last week with one at home against Ponchatoula and one on the road against Mandeville.
Slidell vs Ponchatoula
In one of the most exciting matches of the season Slidell hung on for a 3-2 win (25-0, 24-26, 25-23, 20-25, 15-9).
With the win, the Lady Tigers improve to 18-12 on the season and 6-3 in district play. Ponchatoula falls to 9-21 and 2-7 in league play.
The third set saw Slidell come back from a seven-point deficit and capture nine straight points to win 25-23.
“We always have a tough time with Ponchatoula,” said Lady Tiger coach Michelle Anderson. “We need to cut down on our errors and play a little bit better.”
Slidell vs Mandeville
In a game that was sloppy on both ends of the volleyball court, the Mandeville Skippers came away with an important district win.
After splitting the first two games, the Skippers defeated Slidell 25-11 and 25-15 in the final two games to take the match to end last week’s action of district play.
Sophomore Sam Gomez led the Skippers with 12 kills, six aces and a pair of blocks. Kailynn Haley had seven kills and Emily Boylan had seven blocks to go along with six kills of her own. Ali Leblanc had 17 digs and Sarah Rinuado had 14 assists in the victory.
After capturing the opening game with an easy 25-17 win, the Skippers service game struggled in a 25-21 game two loss.
“The first two games we had 17 service errors,” Mandeville coach Jody Walker said. “The last two games we had five. That’s a big difference. We never allowed ourselves to get the chance to get the points to win game two. You have to give credit to Slidell. Every time we missed a serve, they would capitalize and come back and score another point.”
Riley Herdliksa led the Tigers (18-13, 6-4) with nine assists. Erica Bennett had nine kills and Kacie Livingston had eight digs.
Slidell coach Michelle Anderson said her squad must figure out how to stop falling behind early in games if they are to become successful and have a deep playoff run.
“It wasn’t an attractive game on either side of the net,” Anderson said. “It was pretty ugly tonight. Nobody seemed like they wanted to win. We don’t set the tone well. Our tone is we fall behind and we have seemed to do that all season. When you do that against good teams, you are not coming back.”