Raymundo Frasquillo Photo/Gila Herald: Senior Katelin Stergion concentrates on sending the ball over the net against Baboquivari on Oct. 12. The Wildkats won 3-0.
By Raymundo Frasquillo
DUNCAN – The 1A No. 10-ranked Kearny Ray Bearcats (8-4 seeding, 1.2895 rating, 3-2 East Region for No. 4 of 9) visit No. 17 Duncan (8-7, minus 2.9724, 2-4 region for No. 7) on Tuesday, Oct. 16. It is the 2018 final home region match for the Sandy French-coached Wildkats. A 6 p.m. start is scheduled.
Duncan closes the regular season at the No. 13 Superior Panthers (8-6, minus 1.0127, 3-3 East Region for No. 5) on Thursday, Oct. 18. The East Region tourney is in Superior on Oct. 25, with the top two finishers qualifying for the state tourney, if not already in the top 16.
The Wildkats split a pair of home matches last week. It was a contrast of opponent ability levels, with one team being fundamentally sound and the other struggling with fundamentals.
Duncan fell in three sets (21-25, 20-25, 18-25) to the No. 5 North Phoenix Prep Gladiators (13-1, 7.4268, 6-0 East Region for No. 1 of 9) on Oct. 11, and downed the No. 36 Sells Baboquivari Warriors (0-8, minus 22.5464, 0-6 South Region for No. 11 of 11) in three sets (25-7, 25-8, 25-10) Oct. 12.
“We played a close match,” assistant coach Madison French said of the loss to the Gladiators.
The Wildkats enjoyed leads of 9-1 (set 1) and 13-0 (set 2) versus the Warriors before a second point was added on the visitors’ side of the scoreboard. A full rotation was not used by Duncan during the first set, but seven servers were used in the second set.
Baboquivari managed to get 10 points in the third set, but they were scored off of Duncan errors, three bad passes, three bad hits, three net serves, and a bad serve receive.
