Lady Tigers Break LHS Golden Arrows

Posted Date: 09/29/2025

What began as an easy night at the office, turned into a much needed escape plan by the end.

Mansfield was on cruise control in their second round conference volleyball meeting with Lavaca on September 25. The visiting Tigers took the Golden Arrows best shot in the first two sets and broke the pointed sticks each time. It was as if Mansfield barely broke a sweat carving out quick wins at 25-10 and 25-17 to start the evening.

Lady Tiger senior Kaylee Ward was terrific. The All-State middle blocker was catching the calls of some well planned set plays to physically dominate Lavaca in the opening frames. In fact, by the end of night, she would finish with a season high 20 kills, plus several more points off some well placed tips, taps and blocks.

“We knew we had to come out hot,” Ward described the setting on the road to Arrow country. “We were running plays for me. We knew we needed a fast start because they were going to give us their best game.”

The Arrows’ best wasn’t quite up to expectations as Mansfield controlled from the start. Then, it looked as if Mansfield started to relax. They forgot that their number one volleyball rival would not go down without some extra fight.

“We got complacent in the third - stopped talking and lost energy,” confessed Ward. “When we lost the third set, we went back in the huddle and knew we could play so much better than that. We got back to our game in the fourth.”

Lavaca took advantage of some Mansfield mental lapses in the third. A string of uncontrolled caroms and a few missed placed hits by Mansfield cleared a path for the Arrows to fly further. With renewed confidence on their home floor and backed by a rowdy student section, Lavaca made things interesting. The Golden Arrows dug a little deeper and ambushed Mansfield with a 25-16 set loss in the third frame.

Tiger sophomore Miley Clopton put the third frame in perspective. “We made a few errors,” she said, “and they got a rally. We got it corrected in the fourth, but every point was back and forth.”

Ward and company had to refocus and go back to what was working in the early going. Adeline Godwin and Kerrington Quick got the ball back into Ward’s sights and the Tiger senior delivered with some monster swings. She wasn’t alone either. Clopton, Danielle Lowery, and Abby Smith got into the action as did Godwin when she wasn’t setting the table for others. That table included 23 assists dished between the two primary Tiger setters, Godwin and Quick.

To get the ball to the setters, Bailey Quick picked up some nice Lavaca serves from her back row cover area and placed passes within easy reach of Godwin and her cousin Kerrington. Then in possession, the sophomore also had some nice service runs of her own. In the first set in particular, Bailey Quick had one stretch of nine straight successful serves.

“When we were hitting, everything was working,” confessed Bailey Quick. “We were being aggressive and putting the ball down, and we were finding the spots that were open when we couldn’t hit.

“Lavaca fought very hard in the third set,” Mansfield’s defensive specialist went on to say. “So by the fourth set, they had all of the momentum. We fought harder and came back and won the set. We started getting hyped after every single point and gave it our all.”

Mansfield took the fourth set by a score of 25-21. Ward finished the deal with two kills, a tip and a two handed dunk of a floater at the top of the net. The set victory gave Mansfield an exhilarating 3-1 decision and sole possession of first place in the conference standings.

“It feels absolutely amazing to be in first place in the conference,” exclaimed Bailey Quick. “I can’t wait to see how the rest of the season turns out.”

Mansfield’s junior girls also beat Lavaca. Freshman Tiger Ellah Heydenreich had an extended service rotation that took Mansfield from being down 14-15 in the second set to going well ahead at 21-15. With the momentum changer, Mansfield went on to grab the game at 25-17.

The junior Tigers won the earlier set 25-11. That put them with the night’s win at 2-0. It also kept them in contention for the conference crown at 9-1. Mansfield’s senior high sits at 10-0 in conference with four league games to go.