Laramie Lady Plainsmen Advance to Wyoming State Volleyball Semifinals

The Laramie High School volleyball team survived a long match against Rock Springs 25-17, 25-21, 23-25, 18-25, 25-13, on Thursday night at the Wyoming State Volleyball Tournament in Casper. The Lady Plainsmen will play in the semifinal match tomorrow against Kelly Walsh at 6 p.m. in the Casper Events Center.

The first two sets saw both team battle early but the Laramie block began to force Rock Springs hitting errors late in each set that gave Laramie the advantage. In between the second and third set the head coach of the Lady Tigers, Wendy Bider, pulled aside her middle hitters. The adjustment was immediately effective for Rock Springs as they pulled out tips and roll shots to get around the block and find open court on Laramie's side. The Lady Plainsmen dropped the next two sets and the Lady Tigers had all of the momentum going in the deciding game.

After Rock Springs jumped out to a 7-2 lead, Laramie Head Coach Trisha Witkop took a time out to talk to her team.

I pretty much just told them that we've made bigger runs and we're just back in our gym. We've played this game hundreds of times and we've practiced coming back for runs. We decided that we wanted to be a team that's competitive at state and to go out there and earn.
-Coach Witkop

Out of the timeout Laramie scored six straight points with Caitlyn McInerney behind the service line. After the Lady Plainsmen took the 8-7 lead it was a battle of wills the rest of the way with senior captain Laurel Austin coming up with the final kill to give Laramie the victory.

Ali Beckler led LHS with 15 kills, 28 digs and 1 ace. She was followed by Britney Titensor with 36 digs, 8 kills and 4 total blocks. From the middle Madison Legerski had 10 kills and 9 block assists while McInerney contributed 2 aces, 6 total blocks and 6 kills.

Laramie's semifinal game will have an online stream available through network1sports.com, listen by clicking here. The match is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. and the broadcast will begin approximately 15 minutes before the match starts.