Bobcats come up short in the end

NORTH PORT - Becky Halbert was pleased with many aspects.  The scoreboard was not one.  The North Port High volleyball team battled for 2 hours, 10 minutes with DeSoto County, dropping a 25-21, 18-25, 26-28, 25-22, 15-7 decision to the Bulldogs on Tuesday at The Cage.

"We played well," said Halbert, North Port's coach. "We did better than I expected. We could have and should have won."

There was one area in particular Halbert was not pleased: serving.

The Bobcats (2-4) average three serving errors per match.

Tuesday they made 12.

"It's huge, especially at really, really specific times, momentum killer times," Halbert said.

After taking two of the first three games, North Port was even at 21 in Game 4, before the Bulldogs reeled off four of the final five points to force a fifth game.

In the deciding game, a kill by senior outside hitter Lauren Bonville broke a 3-3 tie -- the 32nd deadlock of the game to go along with 19 lead changes -- to give DeSoto (6-1) the lead for good.

From there, Bulldogs senior middle Shelby Flint recorded two of her match-high 19 kills and two blocks to ensure a happy return to Arcadia.

"We were pretty balanced with them," said Halbert, whose team was outscored 109-103 in the match. "It came down to we made more errors."

Junior middle Adrienne Moreno led the Bobcats with 15 kills. Senior Jessica Fox notched 17 digs. Junior Kaitlyn Jaeger recorded eight digs and six kills. Senior Brooke Dremann had six kills. Senior Brittany Burnett dished 18 assists.

"We didn't play scared and didn't give up," Halbert said.

Not to take a page from Urban Meyer's book, but many of the Bulldogs were suffering from the flu after attending a college camp during the weekend.

DeSoto hopes to be healthy Thursday for a district rematch in Arcadia with Cardinal Mooney, which handed the Bulldogs their only loss.