Prep Volleyball: Casey beats Boyle in postseason preview

The Casey County and Boyle County volleyball teams took a little time Tuesday night to get acquainted with each other.
They played a match that meant nothing just six days before they will meet again in a match that means everything. And whether one will have any bearing on the other is anybody’s guess.
Visiting Casey’s 25-17, 25-16 victory in the penultimate regular-season match for both teams was its second victory over Boyle this season, and it was a precursor to their meeting Monday in a 45th District Tournament semifinal.
But Casey coach Veronica Sengkhamyong said this win probably won’t have any bearing on their postseason showdown.
“I¿don’t really think it has an effect. It’s two good teams facing each other, and it could go either way,” Sengkhamyong said.
Casey (18-13) swept both sets of Tuesday’s match after winning a three-set decision over Boyle (6-21-1)¿on Sept. 15.
However, Sengkhamyong said the team’s lack of consistency means that two wins over Boyle is no guarantee of a third.
“We’re still not consistent, and we’ve struggled with that all year long,” Sengkhamyong said.
Middle blocker Leann King said Casey isn’t that far away from being a dangerous postseason team “if we can get our act together.”
“Like ‘Coach V’ said, we’re not really consistent, but if we just are more consistent, then we can beat anybody,” King said.
Boyle is looking for a little more consistency as well, even though it has won more frequently in the second half of the season after a 1-13 start.
Boyle brought a two-game winning streak into its match with Casey and jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first set, but it couldn’t put more than two points together in the rest of that set and had no more than three in a row in the balance of the match.
Boyle coach Cate Guthrie kept her team in the locker room for more than 30 minutes after the match.
Casey took control of the first set by taking a 10-7 lead with a string of four straight points that included two aces by Ashley McQueary, and it led 21-13 after an 8-2 run.
Boyle led 2-0 in the second set before Casey again turned the tables with a 6-0 run that included two aces by Shelby Stringer. Sarah Beard later had two aces in an 8-0 run that gave Casey an 18-9 lead and effective put the match out of Boyle’s reach.
Casey’s servers had eight aces in all, and King had four kills.
Emily Hall had six kills and one block for Boyle, while Lisa Talbott had two of its four aces and Bailey Fowler had 13 assists.
Berths in both the 45th District final and the 12th Region Tournament will be at stake in Monday’s rematch at Lincoln County.
“There’s always that saying that it’s hard to beat a team three times, but I believe that we can,”¿Casey middle blocker Leann King said. “I mean, if we can beat them twice, why not just once more?”