Bracken County’s Kyleigh Lippert sends a kill over the net during the second set against Mason County on Tuesday. (Evan Dennison, The Ledger Independent)

Bracken County’s Kyleigh Lippert sends a kill over the net during the second set against Mason County on Tuesday. (Evan Dennison, The Ledger Independent)

HIGH SCHOOL VOLLEYBALL

<p>Mason County’s Amirah Reed hits a ball during the Lady Royals contest with Bracken County on Tuesday. (Evan Dennison, The Ledger Independent)</p>

Mason County’s Amirah Reed hits a ball during the Lady Royals contest with Bracken County on Tuesday. (Evan Dennison, The Ledger Independent)

Come Mid-October, anyone watching the 39th District volleyball tournament will get their price of admission’s worth.

Anytime anyone meets in district play, chances are the match will be going the distance.

It happened again on Tuesday night at The Fieldhouse, Bracken County beating Mason County, 2-1 (15-25, 25-21, 25-18).

“Very competitive district. Shows where this district is at,” Lady Bears coach Wade Smith said.

The Lady Bears went on the attack after a sluggish first set and took control from there.

They tallied 20 kills and 11 aces in the final two sets to rally for the victory.

“We preach be aggressive, be aggressive, be aggressive. Make good passes and make good passes on serve/receive and keep being aggressive at the net. That’s that’s what we preached all night long,” Smith said.

Bracken dug themselves a 6-1 hole in the second set, but countered with a 11-0 run to get the momentum on their side. They’d build the lead to 19-10 before the Lady Royals made a charge to tie things up at 20 and take a 21-20 lead, but the Lady Bears responded with five straight points from there to send the match the distance for a winner take all third set.

Nicole Archibald stacked up two of her six aces on the evening in the beginning of the third set as the Lady Bears built an 8-1 lead. They’d get up 13-3 before Mason County responded behind the service game of Amirah Reed, suddenly in a 15-10 game.

But Bracken responded with a 7-2 run from there to take control, Mason County unable to get within six the rest of the way.

The Lady Royals took the first set, again showing they’re capable of playing winning volleyball, but were unable to get into the win column in their sixth try this season.

“This is a competitive district. We are a competitive team. We just really got to get on the same page with wanting to win and not letting something like service errors get us down,” Lady Royals coach Stephanie Binion said.

In four of those six matches, they’ve won a set.

“We played well, but I think we get down on ourselves. We miss two serves and we’re down and out. It’s fighting that culture of a negative attitude every time you mess up,” Binion said. “We know that we’re better than that, we’re just not acting like it. We get down and then we’re like, ‘Well, we’re terrible,’ and we’re not terrible. We are a good team.”

They’ll get some time to refocus and work on things, off until September 6 when they play at Robertson County.

Bracken finished with 29 kills and 13 aces, Kyleigh Lippert and Macy Lucas each collecting nine kills, Nicole Archibald leading the way with six aces. Mason tallied seven kills and 13 aces, Stevie Foley had three kills and four aces, Amirah Reed with four kills as well.

LADY BEARS DEF. LADY ROYALS, 2-1 (15-25, 25-21, 25-18)

Match Stats

Kills: Bracken 29 (Lippert 9, Lucas 9), Mason 7 (Foley 3)

Aces: Bracken 13 (Archibald 6), Mason 13 (Foley 4, Reed 4)

Errors: Bracken 24, Mason 13

Service Errors: Bracken 12, Mason 8