Northside served up a bunch of aces to grab the first two sets of Tuesday’s 6A-Central home match with Little Rock Central.

After the Lady Tigers avoided the sweep by winning the third set, the Lady Bears used their power game to race out to an 8-1 lead in the fourth set in eventually taking the match.

Northside moved to 2-0 in conference play after prevailing in four sets at Kaundart-Grizzly Fieldhouse, 25-22, 25-18, 24-26, 25-12.

“I told my girls that each conference win is bigger than they know, just to keep finding ways to come home with wins night after night is a big deal in our conference,” Northside coach Matt Waack said. “There’s not any rollover matches (in the conference), it doesn’t look like.”

The Lady Bears, in particular senior Taylor Pate, got out of the gate strong.

Pate served five aces as Northside (5-4, 2-0) scored the first seven points of the match. Senior Lexie Mosby then added a kill to extend the lead to 8-0.

“All I was thinking in my head was get (the serves) in, get it going, get the team hyped and just go to work,” Pate said on her early aces. “That’s all I could think about.

“We’ve been working a lot on serving and serve-receive and our hitting, all of that has been a real big portion of our practices, especially our serving.”

Central (4-3-1, 0-2) fought back within three on several occasions, including 19-16.

But back-to-back kills from Lady Bear senior hitter Nicole Medlin helped swing momentum back to Northside, and after one final Lady Tiger surge, senior Quineisha Tillery’s kill capped the set.

Then in the second set, senior Grace Anne Hollenbeck served four aces, including three straight at one juncture, as Northside ran out to a 9-2 lead. Up 15-12, Medlin’s kill began a 4-0 run, with another kill by Medlin capping it, and she added another kill to extend the lead to eight, 22-14.

Central controlled things for much of the third set before Northside rallied. An ace from Hollenbeck put the Lady Bears one point away from the sweep with a 24-23 lead.

But the Lady Tigers scored the next three points to force a fourth set.

Northside, though, got another big start, taking an 8-1 lead as Medlin delivered several more kills.

The Lady Bears closed things out with a flourish. An ace from Mosby began a match-ending 9-2 run. Back-to-back kills from Sydney Klein pushed the lead to 12 points, 24-12, and junior Thea Bishop’s kill on the very next point finished things out.

“They came out in the fourth set storming like I asked them to and they made their dominance known,” Waack said. “And Central’s good this year; that’s the scrappiest I’ve ever seen them. ... They took North Little Rock to four as well, so they’re seeing some success.”


Medlin finished the night with 17 kills and six blocks, Hollenbeck had 12 kills, and Lainey Logsdon added nine. Hollenbeck had six aces as well.

Mosby recorded 38 assists and had three aces, Pate had 17 digs and five aces and Macie Grams finished with 14 assists.

Northside will play its first conference road match Thursday, going to Little Rock to face Mount St. Mary.
