Lady Buffs falter; sent home from regionals by Shoshoni

The Greybull Lady Buffs entered the Class 2A West Regional tournament as the top seed from the Northwest. Improving steadily all season, they were looking forward to continuing their season with a good finish at regionals and a trip to the state tournament in Casper this weekend.

Those hopes were dashed when they failed to win two before they lost two at regionals and were sent home by the Lady Blue of Shoshoni Saturday morning. Scores were 25-17, 25-19, 21-15, 20-25, 15-17.

“We came out very strong but were struck with a communication and confidence bug that we just did not recover from in the final three sets,” said Coach Sara Schlattmann. “We had over 40 errors in the match, so it took its toll on us.”

“It wasn’t the ending we were shooting for or preparing for,” said Schlattmann. 

Greybull started its bid for state playing fourth seed Wind River and won in three sets Friday, 25-19, 25-15, 25-9. This sent them into the semi-finals Friday afternoon where they were across the net from Thermopolis, a team they had seen before and beaten in most of their meetings.

It was not to be at Lander. The Lady Bobcats had the Buffs’ number and sent them into the consolation bracket in three sets, 26-28, 21-25, 17-25.

“I thought we played well against Wind River,” Schlattmann said. “Maybe not our best, but certainly it was a good start to the tournament.  I felt confident that we were well prepared to play Thermopolis and we started off strong in that first set and if we had won that set, it might have changed the trajectory of the match.  We didn’t and then it felt like our focus changed to playing not to lose and that hurt us.”

Thermopolis had a couple of strong hitters, but Schlattmann said she thought their struggles continued to be at serve receive. 

“We had strong serving from Fatima Chavez, Perla Rodriguez, Wyatt Whaley, Aleksey McColloch, and Shayne Cheatham, all over 90%,” said Schlattmann. 

Leading the attack were Rodriguez with 32 kills, McColloch 25, Camila Acuna 21, Marlee Henson 15, Ellie Holloway seven, primarily assisted by Whaley with 87 assists; Chavez led digging with 30.

“I think it is on me to try and find a good combination of players to compete in those critical moments,” said Schlattmann. “I don’t think I did a good job of making those adjustments at the right time.

“Finally, a huge shout out to our parents, community, and a very vocal and effective student section that I think often gave us the edge in close matches.”