A mark of quality for the North Platte High volleyball team is beating longtime rival Ogallala.

That’s what the Lady Bulldogs accomplished on Tuesday when they defeated the Indians in four sets at the Dawg House.

The scores were 25-20, 25-21, 21-25, 25-15.

“This is huge,” NPHS Head Coach Shelly Byrn said. “Ogallala’s a good team, they’ve been playing well this season. The girls just finally put everything together. Everything we’ve seen in practice that they haven’t been able to grasp (in games). Every part of the game, they were able to do — consistency, power, using their toolbox when they’re hitting. We had hitters placing it where they needed to. We were picking each other when we needed to, we didn’t get down. It was everything we’ve been working on and we finally put it all together.”

North Platte (12-21) jumped out to a 9-4 lead in the first set. Ogallala (23-8) won the next four points to come within one point.

But Jaycee Burk got one of her 15 kills on the next play to give the serve back to the Bulldogs. Alex Ervin hit the ball into the net for the Indians and Lexi Lantis made a kill to push the lead back to four. The lead grew to as much as seven as NPHS took the first set.

The Bulldogs got out to a 6-1 lead in the second set after Izzy Belgum served for five straight points. Ogallala came back with the next four to pull within one. But they couldn’t take the lead after Jaicee Fox scored the next two points with a block and a kill.

The Indians later pulled to within 17-15 but NPHS ran off four straight points to put the second set away.

“We were in system a lot,” Byrn said. “We were able to hit from all parts of the net. I told them not to get down, they have two good hitters (Ervin and Laney Caskey) and they were going to get kills. It was going to be how we bounced back and we did a good job.”

Ogallala scored the first four points of the third set and the Bulldogs couldn’t get much closer than that as the Indians extended the match.

North Platte got ahead early again in the fourth set, taking a 10-4 lead after a five-point rally served by Burk. The Indians quickly came back to tie at 11-11 after setter Hayden Shaw tipped one down to follow an ace served by Aniston O’Neil.

But the Lady Dawgs regained the lead when Keke Williams made a kill off the block on the left side. Trinity Vak served for two straight aces. Addison Uehling made a kill on the right side. Vak got another ace on a ball that landed just inbounds on the backside and Belgum made a kill on the left side to make it 17-11.

Ogallala never threatened again and NPHS recorded their first win against the Indians in four years.

“I’m very proud of how they served,” Byrn said. “I told them we needed to get them out of system because of their two hitters. We had to get them off the net and they did that. They served aggressive.”

Next, the Bulldogs will host Kearney Catholic (21-5) in the last regular season game on Thursday.

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