By Todd Wills
RICE — The Wortham Lady Bulldogs have stressed teamwork all season, trying to blend their roster together under new coach Kim Fisher.
It paid off for them in Tuesday night’s playoff opener against Milford.
Wortham lost 10 straight points in the fourth game trying to close out the match, giving all the momentum back to Milford. The Lady Bulldogs then fell behind in the decisive fifth game, and still found the character to fight back.
Wortham rattled off 7 of the last 9 points of the match to beat Milford, 15-25, 25-15, 25-14, 13-25, 15-12 in a Class A bi-district match in Rice.
The Lady Bulldogs advance to play Milano in an area-round match at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Bremond.
Obviously the fifth game was the only close one of the match. Wortham trailed throughout, never by more than two points, but still it was Milford 10-8 when an error pulled the Lady Bulldogs within a point.
Then came the turning point. Milford’s Ashley Ross, who was a force during that 10-point run in the fourth game with five kills, boomed another down the middle for what looked like a sure point. But senior Lauren Libhart made an improbable save and Jodi Thornton slammed it down to tie things at 10-10.
“We’re up and down for sure,” Libhart said. “It depends on how we’re playing. When we play as a team, we’re good. We had to do anything we could to win.”
Wortham got an ace from Lindsie Ranson, and after trading points, got a kill by Thornton, a kill by Ranson, a kill by Libhart and then game-winning spike by Thornton from the middle of the court.
The Lady Bulldogs celebrated in the middle of the court, relieved to be moving on.
“It’s hard to come back,” Thornton said. “It was do or die. We knew what we had to do.”
