Lady Lions show heart, drop to Russell

The Lewis County Lady Lions hosted the Russell Lady Devils on the volleyball court Thursday night.

With a young team fighting through one of Lewis County’s toughest seasons in recent years, the 2024 Lady Lions have gotten off to a slow start to the season, but aren’t letting that weigh on them. Sitting at 2-17 on the year heading into their contest with the Lady Devils, the Lady Lions are continuously learning and growing as the season continues, looking to improve their skills on the court and hopeful for a successful postseason run, but looking forward to the future of the program nonetheless.

Russell jumped out ahead of Lewis County early in the first set, building up a strong lead quickly, and maintaining it throughout to close out set one 25-17 over the Lady Lions, heading into set two up 1-0 in the series.

“They came out and Russell looked fantastic, four girls jumping up and looked like 90 mile an hour fastballs, and we kept popping them up and popping them up for the most part. They battled, we’ve got some front row work to do, especially off-season, that was definitely obvious tonight. When you’re going up against a girl that’s jumping two foot higher than you it’s really hard to get a ball around them. Overall though, we’re young other than four girls that’s out there. I think the future looks bright, and these girls got heart.” said Lady Lions head coach, Ryan Bentley.

The Lady Lions continued to fight against the Lady Devils’ strong offense throughout the remainder of the contest, but quickly fell behind in sets two and three also. Despite this, Lewis County’s spirits remained high, as the team looks forward to continuing to compete throughout the rest of 2024, and well into the next few years.

In set two, Russell built up a 5-2 lead over Lewis County early, pulling ahead even further shortly after to lead 15-4. As the set continued, the Lady Lions would eventually go on an offensive run, but were unable to catch up to the Lady Devils before rounding out the set 25-9.

“We’ve had a very, very hard schedule this year so they’re used to tough games and battling, and of course our district is just crazy. Russell, Raceland and Greenup all three are just ridiculously good teams. I’m just so proud of these girls, they don’t have a give up in them.” said coach Bentley, “Once you get down that far it’s really hard. There’s gonna be mistakes, there is gonna be things that happen and we just let it get a little to far behind us. Especially in the third set, we’ve done that a lot this year.”

Set three went similarly to set two, with Russell building up a strong lead quickly out of the gate, leading 5-2 over the Lady Lions, and 10-5 shortly after. As the set continued, Lewis County would battle, hoping to catch up to the Lady Devils midway through, but would get down 20-10, and 22-12 late in the game, unable to catch up to Russell. The Lady Lions continued to fight until the contest was over, Russell taking set three 25-12, and the contest 3-0, but the Lady Lions walked off the court still in good spirits.

“They’re up, the older girls have done a really good job to express to the younger ones that this is probably the most difficult schedule they’ve played they’re whole career as well. I say they’re up but they hate losing, but they understand. It’s a big hill for us this season, it’s been difficult for us every step of the way this year.” said coach Bentley, “It’s a district loss, but I have to say, they battled their butts off. I told them before the game we get the best team, whatever they got we’re gonna get the best, and we did.”

The Lady Lions will now gear up to hit the road to Rose Hill Christian School this morning, taking on both Rose Hill Christian and Menifee County in a tri-dual contest, before returning home on Tuesday to face off against the Greenup County Lady Musketeers in yet another tough 63rd district match-up.