Sikeston volleyball falls to Lady Bearcats

DEXTER - Dexter seemed to win every long rally last night against the Sikeston Lady Bulldogs as the Lady Bearcats pulled out a 25-17, 25-13 win at home Thursday night.

Dexter maintained control of both games against the Lady Bulldogs, but the matchup between the two teams was closer than the scores would lead you to believe.

"The first game was actually tight, tighter than the score might indicate," Sikeston coach Steve Beydler said. "We had a lot of long rallies and both teams were digging up the balls the other team was putting back in their face. We just kept falling short in the end.

"Every time we had a very long rally, back-and-forth, back-and-forth, Dexter would get the point," Beydler continued. "The next long rally, back-and-forth, Dexter would get the point. That's just draining on everybody's will and attitude."

"I felt like we played pretty well," he added. "Dexter's got a very good team. They just kept bringing the ball back at us and in the end they kept getting the point after those long rallies and that really was the difference."

The win improves Dexter's record to 16-7-2 on the season, while Sikeston slipped to 7-12.

"Sikeston has a good team," Dexter coach Kris Vandeven said. "They are scrappy and the games were much closer than the scores indicated. There were several long rallies that went our way."

Katie Alsup again led the Lady 'Cats in kills with seven, while adding one ace, three blocks and five digs.

Kayla Durham and Rachael Smith led the Lady 'Cats in digs with seven each, while Mallory Kennedy and Amanda Pixley charted six apiece. Kennedy also had two kills and three aces, while Pixley recorded two aces and a team-leading 18 assists.

The win should give the Lady Bearcats some momentum heading into Monday night's game at home with Puxico. The winner of that game will be the regular-season Stoddard County Activities Association (SCAA) conference champion.

Puxico enters the game undefeated in SCAA play after defeating Advance Thursday night. Dexter has one loss and a win over the Lady Indians would give Dexter the title in a tie-breaker for their head-to-head series. A Puxico win would make them undefeated on the season and outright champs.

"Monday night's last regular season conference game against the Puxico Indians will be a good one," Vandeven said. "From what I hear, Puxico is really tough this year. We want a repeat of last year's regular season SCAA champs. In order to do that, we have to take down the Indians."

Monday will also be Senior Night for the volleyball team.

In junior varsity play, Dexter defeated Sikeston, 25-23, 25-18.

ORAN - The Oran volleyball team lost at home to Leopold 23-25, 14-25.

Oran (6-11-1, 4-4 conference) will play at Bloomfield on Monday at 6 p.m.

Amanda Eftink had four blocks and two kills. Courtney Nenninger had five blocks, nine digs and two kills. Tori St. Cin had 11 digs. Carmen Duncan had seven digs and two aces. Kayla Graviett had two aces.

Oran's junior varsity lost 11-25, 10-25.

SOCCER

MARION, Ill. - The Sikeston soccer team posted a 2-2 tie on the road with Marion on Thursday.

Sikeston fell behind 2-0 but rallied to salvage the tie before time ran out.

"We didn't play real great in the first half," said Sikeston coach Derrick Long. "Marion's always a tough place to play. I don't know what it is. But it took us a while to get a goal past. It's a pretty physical game and it always is with them. Just coming back from 2-0 says a lot. We didn't give up. It's been a good week. If somebody would've told me we would go 2-0-1 this week I would've taken it."

Anthony Jones gave Marion a 1-0 lead at the 9:00 mark. Josh Sims made it 2-0 at the 44:00 mark.

Sikeston (6-6-1) finally got on the board in the second half at the 55:00 mark when E.C. Atchison scored on a penalty kick.

The Bulldogs tied it at the 71:00 mark when J.R. Bizzell scored on an assist from Blake Taylor.

Sikeston out-shot Marion 24-to-15.

Scott Droddy had 12 saves for the Bulldogs.

Sikeston's junior varsity fell to 3-6-1 on the season with a 2-0 loss to Marion.

JV lost 2-0 and they are 3-6-1

Sikeston will play at Fredericktown on Monday at 4 p.m.

JACKSON - The Sikeston eighth and ninth grade football teams were swept by Jackson on Thursday.

Sikeston's eighth grade team fell 33-0 to the Indians to fall to 0-3 on the season.

"We did pretty good on special teams and we kept our penalties down," said Sikeston assistant Tim Young.

"We had some nice receptions. We had some plays that could've gone big but they didn't. We're still banged up. We lost our running back a couple weeks ago and we've been trying to make it through that. We just got out-played, basically."

Sikeston's ninth grade team fell to 1-3 on the season with a 27-6 loss.

The Bulldogs fell behind 27-0 before scoring in the fourth quarter when quarterback Chase Ferrell hit Cody Anderson for a 35-yard touchdown pass.

"It could've been an 8-6 ballgame," said Sikeston coach Steve Bays. "We put the ball on the ground, they blocked a punt, and they had a short field. They had one drive in the second half. It took them six minutes to score on their first drive.

"We dropped three touchdowns passes that were wide open. We had chances, but we didn't capitalize. I'm proud of our kids, they didn't give up and they played their tails off. There's no quit in them. We were short a couple kids and some other kids stepped up and played and that's what we're trying to accomplish."

Sikeston's junior high teams will be back in action on Thursday at 5 p.m. when they host Poplar Bluff.