Mental toughness

The Smith-Cotton Lady Tigers withstood a couple of late- game surges Tuesday night to beat Clinton, 28-26, 25-23, in a West Central Conference volleyball match.

Game one was tied at 17 when the Lady Cardinals went on a run that nearly won them the game. With Malori McGhee serving, Smith-Cotton quickly fell behind 23-17.

Kristi Miller came up with a big kill to give the Lady Tigers the serve, trailing 23-18.

Smith-Cotton went on its own run and cut the deficit to 23-21.

A Katelin Knight kill made it 24-22. Her ace, one of three she had in the contest, cut it to a 1-point game.

With the score knotted at 26, Nichole Hoffmann set up Brittainy Zimmerschied for a kill to put the Lady Tigers up 27-26. Zimmerschied led the team in kills with nine, while Knight finished with seven.

“(Hoffmann) is doing a really good job of getting to the ball and getting it up there for them to hit,” said S-C coach Brandon Wallace.

The Lady Tigers proved they could hang on to a lead in game two, as well.

“We’ve been talking about mental toughness for at least two or three weeks now,” said Wallace.

The Lady Tigers took a 6-1 lead, but Clinton rallied back to tie the game at 7. Smith-Cotton pushed ahead 15-9 lead on a Miller ace.

Smith-Cotton took its biggest lead of the night, 20-12, on a Hoffmann kill, but the Lady Cardinals had another run in them.

Clinton went on an 11-4 run, making the score 24-23, but the Lady Tigers got a dig from Sarah Stathem, allowing Hoffmann to set up Zimmerschied for the spike. Clinton returned the shot, but Knight was there for the game-ending kill.

“Last night, we had a rough game in St. Pius in the same situation, just mental toughness. We just weren’t there,” Wallace said. “So tonight we needed to show we could make a stand and finish the game, and we did that.”

Smith-Cotton will try to put together consecutive wins when it travels to Warrensburg Thursday night.