The Shoshoni Lady Wranglers are state tournament bound after going 3-1 in Class 2-A West Regional tournament action at Riverton last weekend.
Shoshoni opened and closed the tournament with Big Piney. On Friday afternoon the Lady Wranglers handled the Punches 25-20, 25-19, 25-23 to advance to a semi-final matchup with Northwest Conference foe Greybull. Shoshoni fell in four games to the eventual regional champion Lady Buffs, taking the only game from Greybull in the entire tournament 25-17 in the third game of the match.
That set them up with Fremont County rival Wind River in a loser out/ qualifying game Saturday morning at Riverton High School.
Wind River came to the Saturday elimination game after a hard fought opening round five-game match tilt with Southwest Champion. The Cougars took games one and three 25-22 and 26-24, but fell 25-20 and 25-11 in the second and fourth in the tiebreaker game they fell 15-13.
Many predicted a Northwest sweep of the Southwest and it came within two points of being true.
The Lady Cougars eliminated Wyoming Indian 25-18, 25-18, 22-25, and 25-18 to reach Saturday’s game.
Watching the two teams warmup you would have expected Wind River to dominate the Lady Wranglers, but that wasn’t the case.
Wind River is a much taller team and has a good blocking defense, but Shoshoni played that against them.
In the first game, the Lady Cougars took a 12-10 lead on a Maggie Jensen ace, prompting a timeout by Shoshoni head coach Amy Mason. It proved to be Wind River’s only lead of the entire three-game match.
Shoshoni rolled on a 5-0 run to take a 17-12 lead and never looked back.
Wind River’s Cylie Honstein and Addison Dow dominated the net with multiple blocks, but many of them flew out of bounds for Wrangler points. The strategy worked well for Shoshoni over the next three full games with Wind River blocking repeatedly, but resulting in more points against them than in their favor. Single or double blocks didn’t make much difference.
Shoshoni won the opener 25-21 on a Sway Fike dink that eluded the block and landed in front of the back row.
In game two Shoshoni junior Morgan Donelson hit eight serves in a row to open the game, including two aces. Wind River head coach Sarah Remacle called time at 7-0 with the Cougars blocking the eighth point out of bounds. Donelson finally hit the net on her ninth serve to end the scoring spree.
Anatomy of a serve – Morgan Donelson – h/t Randy Tucker
Serves by Abby Jennings, a pair of kills by Fike, and a block by Madi Ramage lifted the score to 17-3. Wind River rallied but a Brueklyn Trumpler ace lifted the score to 20-7 and the Cougars couldn’t rally.
The third game was tied three times at 11, 12, and 16, but each time Shoshoni took the lead back.
Wind River’s hitters were more focused but the Wranglers dug out most of the attempted kills, paced by sophomore Brenna Metzler who took sizzling hits and serves just inches off the hardwood to set up Shoshoni’s offense.
The Lady Cougars were overpowering at the net, but it didn’t matter with the Lady Wranglers returning almost all of their spikes. Shoshoni won the game 25-20 earning a trip to Casper in the process.
Later Saturday afternoon, Shoshoni beat Big Piney for the second time in two days 25-19, 25-10, 25-22.
The Lady Wranglers will open play on Thursday at the Ford Wyoming Center against Burns, the second seed from the East.