Lady Spartans volleyball to fight for state spot against region foes

By GARY ARRINGTON Sports writer

After splitting region volleyball games last week, the Emery Lady Spartans will travel to Mt. Pleasant Tuesday night to participate in a three-way play-in game for the right to travel to Utah Valley University this Friday to face Morgan in the first round of the 3-A state tournament.
Emery defeated Manti Tuesday evening in the Spartan Center on senior night as the school honored the graduating seniors that were playing in their last home game of the season. Seniors this season are Nikki Rogers, Kristiann Grange, Tiffany Tuttle, Danavin Reed, Abbie Kay and Ashley Alger.
Emery defeated Manti 25-17, 25-23 and 25-15. In the second game, Emery was down 0-5 and then way down at 4-13 before getting their act together and defeating Manti in that game. Emery has the ability to play with anybody it seems but often that ability seems to get lost but not this night. Emery lost to Delta at Delta on Thursday to finish the season at 2-8 in region play.
With the 2-8 record, Emery tied Manti and Juab with identical records for the fourth spot in region 12. Richfield won the region with a perfect 10-0 record followed by Delta and North Sanpete.
Because Emery, Juab and Manti each defeated each other once this season, the three schools will flip a coin with the winner waiting to play the winner of the early game between the two losers of the coin flip. This play-off is for the final slot from region 12 in the 3-A state tournament.
This was a season best summed up maybe as coulda, woulda, shoulda. This team took a while to find themselves and basically got better throughout the season. Some thought that this team had talent that could have been higher up in region play.
At times, this team has played extremely well while at other times this team struggled with fundamentals. Coach Kris Bell thinks that, “these girls have been fun to be around and I will miss them when the season is over. It just took us a while to get it together this year. We have the ability if we just would do it.”
The first game is Tuesday at 6 p.m. in Mt. Pleasant with the next game coming right after. The winner advances. The state tournament is at Utah Valley University in Orem starting this Friday morning and will run through Saturday evening when the champion is crowned.