It was a tough end to their regular season play for the Lady Rangers, who lost to the Pinedale Wranglers 3-1 last Saturday. From the beginning of the first set, both teams knew they were in for a grueling match.

Head coach Jennifer Nielson called her first timeout for the set with the score at 12-13, and it seemed to do some good, as the Lady Rangers eked out a minor edge over the Lady Wranglers. Pinedale called their first timeout at 22-19, but it wasn’t enough to reverse the edge that the Lady Rangers had established, and they narrowly prevailed over the Lady Wranglers 25-21 in the first set.

But despite that bitter contest in the first set, the Lady Wranglers found their footing and a winning strategy with their midfield kill shots that the Lady Rangers were utterly unable to overcome, no matter how many times Pinedale repeated the tactic across the next three sets. Even when Lady Ranger defenders were in position to block Pinedale’s shots, many of them still broke past their guard and scored the point on more than one occasion.

Pinedale’s tactics proved effective, and they convincingly won the second set 25-19, but there were several occasions where the Lady Rangers caught up, only to have Pinedale stay one step ahead.

It was a similar story for the third set, with Pinedale continuing to exploit the Lady Rangers’ lack of midfield coverage and their vulnerabilities to the faux kill shots that the Lady Wranglers were fond of. But by the third set, the score disparity was especially rough, with the Lady Rangers calling their first time out with the score 6-15. Although they would temporarily rally to score five unanswered points, Pinedale broke their momentum with another midfield spike and ultimately finished the set 14-25.

The Lady Rangers started the fourth set off strong, temporarily taking the lead and fostering hopes for a comeback. But their drive was blunted with a bad serve, bringing the score to 4-4. The Lady Rangers then allowed Pinedale to score five more points before a timeout was called. Afterward, the Lady Rangers took a few points, but were still far behind the Lady Wranglers with the score 7-15.

However, the Lady Rangers appeared to find a second wind, scoring five more points, bringing the score back to 12-16. However, another midfield spike from Pinedale again proved to be especially effective this against the Lady Rangers this late in the game, and the Lady Wranglers reclaimed the momentum. Still, the Lady Rangers refused to give up, and they continued the battle until Kemmerer’s last time out was called, with the score 15-22.

As before, the Lady Rangers temporarily rallied, and scored three more points before Pinedale called in their first timeout of the set. Ultimately, it would be the Lady Wranglers who would have their own post-timeout rally and shut down the Lady Rangers, ending the set 25-19, and winning the match 3-1.

Looking back on the game as a whole, Nielson lamented that she was disappointed, adding, “I think we could have played a lot better than what we were showing out there.”

Still, she did see some good in it all, noting that she saw that the Lady Rangers had strong hits when they had good sets, tough blocking, as well as good serving and passing.

But Nielson was also keenly perceptive about what went wrong for the Lady Rangers, adding that they were “still standing around.”

“We can’t do that. We gotta be ready and moving all the time,” she explained.

She also elaborated a bit about how the Lady Rangers struggled to respond to Pinedale’s strategy, adding that “they just weren’t making the adjustments with the tips, and that’s what killed us.”

Overall though, Nielson was proud of how far the Lady Rangers have come as a team.

“We’ve just improved tremendously; we just have to have that faith to finish. We gotta win in 3, and we gotta finish in 3. And so that’s our hang-up right now,” she said.

Nielson also explained that the last time the Lady Rangers had played against the Lady Wranglers resulted in a close 2-3 loss. Indeed, as players and fans alike could attest to from the close first set, it’s clear that both teams were fairly evenly matched.

This game was also the last home game for the Lady Rangers, and they recognized their volleyball seniors in a brief ceremony. For a collection of photos of the twelve seniors, check out our Facebook page or email the Gazette at editor@kemmerergazette.com.

“We really needed this win, and it would have been better seeding for regionals, but it’s okay. We just have to regroup and focus on Monday and be ready for Friday,” Nielson explained.

The Lady Rangers will travel to Lyman this Friday for regionals with an overall record of 11-18-1, and 0-6 in conference play, where they will face off against the Lander Valley Tigers, who have a record of 23-1-2 in regular play and are 7-0 in their division’s conference play.