Fayetteville to play for third straight volleyball state title

By Steve Andrews  

ROGERS – Fayetteville will enter Saturday’s 6A state volleyball final without having lost a single set to a team inside the state of Arkansas this season.

And despite the fact that the Lady Bulldogs have defeated Fort Smith Southside twice in straight sets this season, head coach Jessica Phelan is taking nothing for granted.

“Southside is a team that has a very strong tradition and their kids have improved steadily, all year long,” she said. “They played very well today, so I think Saturday is an entirely new season. We will try to learn from what we learned the first two times we played them this year, but we understand that this will be an entirely different atmosphere.”

Fayetteville, once again, did what they had to do in Thursdays semifinals at Rogers Heritage, defeating Cabot in straight set, 25-16, 25-12, 25-18.

They will now be playing for their third consecutive state championship when they meet the Lady Mavericks Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Bank OZK Arena in Hot Springs. The game will also be televised on Arkansas PBS.

“I thought Cabot played hard, but our kids have had that trip to Hot Springs circled,” Phelan said. “That’s where they had hoped to end their season together, so we are certainly glad to get to spend these next two days together.”

With 14 seniors on the team, a third title would be the storybook ending for this class of Lady Bulldogs.

“It feels amazing,” said senior Brooke Rockwell, who has been a member of all three state finals teams. “We’re all really excited, especially since we are a senior-heavy team.”

Fayetteville actually fell behind early in all three sets Thursday but were able to quickly get into rhythm with a well-balanced offense and some destructive net play.

“I thought we ran a balanced offense and that tends to put a lot of pressure on teams, so it was solid effort,” Phelan said. “We made some aggressive errors early, but you just have to wash them and keep playing hard, and I think we did that.

“We did a nice job offensively and we have some dynamic hitters and were able to score a lot of points from a lot of different places. And defensively, I thought we did a nice job of keeping them from scoring.”

After falling behind 3-1 in the opening set, a couple of Rockwell kills evened it up at 3-3. Fayetteville began to take control midway through the set on a pair of kills from Kennedy Phelan to make it 12-9. After Cabot cut it back to two, the Lady Bulldogs scored four straight, getting a kill and a block from Regan Harp to increase the lead to 21-15. Another Harp block on the final point gave Fayetteville the first set, 25-16.

“I think we all you came out knowing that we had to come out really strong and take each point at a time,” said Rockwell, who finished with a game-high 18 kills and 11 digs. “We knew if we all brought strong energy, we could pull it out. I think the key for us was just all staying together, all staying positive and just focusing on that next point. We were constantly mixing up our offense, which definitely helped throw them off with their blocking.”

After the Lady Panthers scored the first point of Set 2, Fayetteville exploded for 10 unanswered points, including a tip-kill by Meg Gebhart. Maddy Lafata added three kills to sustain the 10-point margin. Harp then added two more kills and a service ace to finish things off, 25-12.

Kennedy Phelan had back-to-back aces as Fayetteville jumped out to a 15-5 lead in Set 3. Cabot to continue the fight, scoring four straight points, but it was a pair of kills from Rockwell and another from Phelan down the stretch to send the Lady Bulldogs to the finals with a 25-18 win.

“At this time of the year you just want to score the points that you need to, to win,” Coach Phelan said. “We were able to withstand their mini-runs and come back and score points. We were able to keep pressure on them with our serve and our defense. Right now, we want to stay in the moment and not focus on the end so much as the process, and then get there and just play one point at a time.”