PG TELCO WEBCAST — The Prairie Grove Tigers (15-5), fresh off their district tournament championship, battled their way to the 4A tournament semifi nals.

Their season came to an abrupt end when they fell in 3 games to the eventual state champion Valley View Blazers, on Thursday at the Brandon Burlsworth youth center in Harrison.

“I am extremely proud of these girls and what they accomplished this year,” said Tigers’ coach Hannah McDonald. “They set goals before the season and one of those goals was to pull closer together as a team. And to get as far as we did, we had to pull together as a team.”

In the opening round of the state tournament played on Oct. 30, the Tigers made quick work of the Newport Greyhounds, sweeping them in 3 games (25-15, 25-17, 25-13).

“I thought the girls were very relaxed and played with ease,” McDonald said. “We didn’t have any nerves and we were able to dominate.”

In their quarterf inal matchup played on Oct. 31, the Tigers were pushed to 5 games (25-20, 26-24, 19-25,16-25, 15-8) by the Malvern Leopards.

Prairie Grove opened a 2 game lead, but watched as Malvern took the next 2 games to knot the contest up at 2 games apiece. Before the final game, which was played to 15, the Tigers were inspired by the words of Cayleigh Sue Moyer, According to McDonald, Moyer told the team that they have not lost a 5 game match all year and that they weren’t going to today. The Tigers won the race to 15 points which set-up a semifinal showdown with the Blazers.

The Blazers, a volleyball powerhouse, who added their eighth title in 10 years with a victory over Jonesboro Westside on Saturday, proved to be too much for the Tigers in their semifi nal matchup played on Thursday.

Prairie Grove started the first game on a positive note, with a spike from Kaleigh Witherspoon. The Blazers then reeled off 15 consecutive points, putting the Tigers in a deep hole. Two blocks and 4 kills from Moyer, along with 2 more kills from Witherspoon and 1 put-away by Erin Galloway, allowed the Tigers to close the gap to 22-9, but the Blazers scored the next 3 points to win game one 25-9.

Three early kills by Marie Gregson in the second game, combined with a Witherspoon ace, allowed the Tigers to take a 8-5 lead. Valley View then staged a 19-2 run, putting the Tigers behind 24-10. Prairie Grove won the next 2 points, the second coming on a Gregson kill, which closed the defi cit to 24-12. Valley View won the next point, giving them the 25-12 win and increasing their advantage to 2 games to zero.

Three kills and an ace from Moyer helped the Tigers stay even with the Blazers, at 11-all, midway through the third contest. However, just like the other contests, the Blazers went on a dominating, 15-5 run, which gave them the 25-15 win and completed the 3 game sweep.

“They (Valley View) are a really good team and I think at times we were able to compete with them,” McDonald said. “Another one of our goals at the beginning of the season was to advance past the fi rst round of the playoffs and we surpassed that. So we have nothing to be ashamed of and I’m proud of what we accomplished.”

Sports, Pages 9 on 11/07/2012