Despite a tortuous second set which witnessed their opponents fighting off 10 game points, the Paris Ladycats locked up a playoff spot Friday with a 25-7, 30-28, 25-7 win over the Pittsburg Lady Pirates in the Wildcat Gym.
Also on Friday North Lamar (9-0) officially wrapped up its fifth straight district title with a win over runnerup Pleasant Grove (7-2). Liberty-Eylau (5-4) is in third place, but Paris (4-5) can tie the Lady Leopards for the No. 3 seed with a win Tuesday in the Wildcat
Gym in the regular season finale. An L-E win means Paris, 13-22 overall, will finish fourth in District 15-4A and meet the District 16 champion (either Spring Hill or Gilmer) in the bi-district round the week of Nov. 2.
Paris had a relatively easy time dispatching Pittsburg (1-8) despite using a new rotation which caused a 10-minute break in action early in Game 1 while officials tried to correct a substitution error. Once play resumed, the Ladycats quickly closed out the set which featured a long run at the service line by jump-serving sophomore libero Katy Hall.
Game 2 was an entirely different story. Paris was primed to take a 2-0 match lead with a 24-16 advantage when Pitt went on an 8-0 run to tie the set at 24. The Ladycats had 2 more game points, and the Lady Pirates also had a couple in topsy-turvy action before 3 straight Pitt errors ended the drama.
Long service runs by Hall, senior Mary Cobb, and junior Tieren Gates closed out the match in Game 3. Gates produced the play of the day when she dove for a one-handed dig save that dropped over the net for an unexpected point to give Paris its first, and only needed, match point at 24-7 in Game 3.