Lady Warriors cap off big week with 3-0 win over No. 1 Buffalo

Closing out the homecoming week with a bang, the Worland Lady Warriors knocked off 3A's No. 1-ranked team in impressive fashion.

Beating Lander 3-0 (26-24, 25-21, 25-21) in Lander on Sept. 28 and Rawlins 3-1 (25-18, 23-25, 25-15, 25-17) on Sept. 29 at Worland High School, the Lady Warriors (10-8) ended the week hosting the WyoPreps No. 1-ranked 3A team on Sept. 30.

Buffalo was 18-2-3 on the season, had beaten many of 3A's top-ranked teams and hadn't lost to a 3A team this season. That was until they took on the Lady Warriors.

Worland won the match and did so in three sets, 25-22, 25-18, 25-22.

"The goal of every coach is that their teams can realize their potential," said WHS volleyball coach Becky Wassum. "You could just see their confidence grow. Once they get confident in themselves, there's no stopping them. I've seen glimpses of it, but this is the first time they were like, 'You're not stopping us.' It was pretty fun to watch that happen. That's a coach's dream."

Elly Julson played one of her best games of the season, picking up kills and key blocks for the Lady Warriors in the upset over Buffalo.

"Elly worked hard all summer. She's worked hard on defense. That right side is where all their best hitters are. Her and Ellianna [Baumstarck] shut down Tess Rule from Buffalo, the best hitter around. They just dominated her. And it was crazy. But Elly has worked really hard on knowing where to set a block, how to set it, and reach over the net," said Wassum. "Those little details that really make a difference."

The Lady Warriors played their most complete and complementary game to date. They had an answer for every counter by Buffalo and slammed the door on any comeback attempt.

"They were just playing. They can do all those things, but to be able to put it together for a whole game like that. That was the first time I've seen them consistently do that. They didn't get down more than one or two points. They would get a side-out and didn't stay in their mistakes, which is a great quality," said Wassum. "They just put the gas pedal down and went all the way to the end. I was really proud of them."

The Lady Warriors height advantage got the better of Buffalo, and Wassum credited her front line for setting up effective blocks.

"Our blocking was so much better on Saturday. We've worked a lot on reaching. It's one thing to get there and be big and tall, but if you don't do that, the last little reach over the net, where you squeeze your core and seal the block, then you just get used or tooled off the block. They were doing that and all the little things they've been working on. Their hard work is starting to pay off," said Wassum.

Worland is in Powell for the 3A West conference duals this week on Friday and Saturday. In Powell, they'll match up against the four 3A Southwest teams.

With the 3A West regional tournament at the end of this month, the duals can offer as tiebreakers and let a team know where they stand.

"Now it's like a new team. We will go from here and keep working and not get too big of heads either. Now they know what they can do. We've got a huge weekend coming, so this will be the true test of whether they can keep it going and improving," said Wassum. "The sky's the limit."

Preparing for the duals, Worland has spent this week perfecting their block and defense while honing their offense.

"We're going to keep going on defense. When we read the ball and are moving our feet instead of just diving for everything, it's the difference between just one little step, and you can get the ball as opposed to diving and you're down. We're going to do a lot of defensive stuff where they move their feet a lot, talk where the ball is going. We'll continue blocking because that's a huge part of the defense. We've got such a tall team we could be the best blockers in the state.

"We always work a lot on receive-serve, I thought our serve-receive was really good on Saturday. If we serve well and we serve receive, you can beat anyone. We'll work on setting just to try and clean up some of our setting and get our offense moving as well. We'll hone those little things for setting," said Wassum.