Golden Bears spike Knights

PALMER -- The Bartlett Golden Bears cruised to a 3-0 (15-9, 15-11, 15-3) non-conference victory over the Colony Knights at the Colony Gym Saturday.

Despite the loss, the Knights were able to get out to significant leads in both the first and the second games. Colony jumped out to a 8-1 lead in game one and 5-1 lead in game two.

Bartlett was able to claw its way back into each game and the Bears ran away with game three.

In the begining of the match, Colony got a pair of kills from Amy Burns and a service ace from Zeenie Preston to give the Knights the early lead. Bartlett followed with several hitting errors to help Colony towards their early eight point advantage.

After a timeout in the first game, the Golden Bears started to use their experience and size to their advantage and began to overpower the younger and smaller Knights.

Bartlett soon evened the tally at eight. The teams remained in an 8-8 tie for a great deal of time as each team traded sideouts back and forth.

The Golden Bears would eventually capture the first game as they went on a 6-0 run highlighted by a pair of Amanda Foe service aces.

In the following game, a Preston kill sandwiched in between two hitting errors from Bartlett's Nikki Moss gave Colony a 3-1 lead. The Knights took a three point lead as Megan Larson notched a service ace. The ball landed just within the right line to give the Knights one of their two aces for the match.

Colony extended its lead to 5-1 on an Alyson Body kill.

Much like game one, in game two the teams would remain deadlocked before an eventual Bartlett rally. The Golden Bears tied the game at 6-6 and then went on a six-point run to give the squad a 12-6 lead.

Burns led the Knights with 13 digs and seven kills. Preston added 13 digs for Colony.

Hawks win two matches

The Houston Hawks won a pair of matches over the weekend, defeating Susinta Valley on the road and Heritage Christian at the friendly confines of the Houston Gym.

On Friday, the Hawks needed only four games to defeat Su Valley (15-7, 15-6, 13-15, 15-10). The Hawks were nervous going into the match, without the services of one of their premier hitters Onie Grey. Without Grey, who was out due to an illness, Houston head coach Kristin Hammers turned to Tamira Lohrey.

Lohrey filled the spot vacated by Grey and finished the spot among the team leaders in serving and passing statistics.

The following day, Houston defeated Heritage Christian (15-3, 15-11, 15-7). Onie returned to the Hawk line-up to register eight kills.

"I have never seen this team come together and play volleyball like they did the past two days," Hammers said. "It was an outstanding job and I am so proud of their team intensity."