Clay Horning
Tuesday night was Senior Night at Norman North, where the Timberwolves set about evening their season series with crosstown rival Norman High.
Before that could happen, however, Lydia Rice had to be honored. She's the only senior on North's squad and Tuesday she got to celebrate twice.
Once when she had Senior Night all to herself and again when the T-Wolves finished off their 25-15, 25-22, 25-18 victory sweep.
"Let's just say it was awesome," Rice said.
Awesome may cover it.
North was much better than earlier in the season, when NHS put an end to the T-Wolves quick start to the season, winning a four-set match on the Tigers' floor.
"Our offense and defense worked together," North coach Karin Ream said. "We minimized our errors"
So just about everybody in green and white played well. But nobody was better than sophomore Lexie Matthews.
"That was probably the most intense match we've played all season," Matthews said.
Her play certainly fed into it. The 15-year-old finished the night with a match-high 13 kills and a team-high four blocks. Raw numbers aside, the most impressive thing she did was play with a consistency rarely witnessed in the high school game.
"This is one of her best matches," Ream said. "She's got it in her."
Matthews made her presence known in the first set, racking up five kills, including the 25th point. During one stretch in the second set, through kills or blocks, she was responsible for five of six consecutive North points.
She was quiet in the final set until the end. But she came through in the end, delivering one more cannon shot to end the match.
Matthews knew she'd played well, but figured it was everybody playing pretty well.
"I wanted to go out there and play my best," she said. "I had a feeling everybody was going to play well."
Carmen King and Grace Lamer both had seven kills. Tori Thomas added 12 digs and Rice, playing her last night at the North Gym, added four aces.
NHS' front line of Jasmine Pickett, Grace Valliere and Aubrey Stone kept NHS close most of the night. Valliere was a defensive machine, coming up with nine digs and eight blocks.
Still, NHS coach Staci Vest wasn't very pleased.
"We were not ourselves," she said. "We just didn't show up."
Vest thought a not-very-favorable regional draw, which has NHS at Edmond Memorial Thursday, may have been a distraction.
"We had some tough breaks with our regional seedling that we found out about yesterday," she said. "And we just weren't ready to play today."
Favorable or not, North is heading east Thursday. Ream thought the Crosstown Clash came at the right time, all things considered.
"We've got Thursday night regionals in Owasso and we feel the competition is going to be very similar."
