Published: October 31, 2009 01:56 am      

Lady Jackets swept by Midlothian, will face Red Oak next

After sweeping its last two opponents to force Friday’s third-place tiebreaker against Midlothian, Cleburne was swept by the Lady Panthers 26-24, 25-21, 26-24 at Yellow Jacket Gym.

After consecutive wins over Waxahachie and Midlothian, the Lady Jackets fell short and will be the fourth playoff team in 16-4A.

Cleburne head coach Floyd Rogers said the fire his team showed from the previous matches was missing in Friday’s contest.

“We didn’t show up to play,” Rogers said. “I would say we played OK, it’s not like we didn’t play at all. We didn’t have that emotion we had the last two matches.”

The Lady Jackets found themselves trailing, 14-10, in Game 1 before going on an 11-2 run to take a 21-16 lead.

With momentum on their side, it seemed a victory was imminent for Cleburne, but Midlothian wasn’t finished.

The Lady Panthers responded by winning six of the next seven points to tie the game at 22-22 before the Lady Jackets took the lead on the next point.

Midlothian won the next two to set up game point at 24-23, and closed the game out with two of the next three points.

Cleburne led 15-14 in Game 2, but that was the last time the Lady Jackets would have the advantage as the Lady Panthers’ front row turned back numerous kill attempts from Cleburne.

Rogers said he expected Midlothian to come back to Cleburne on Friday with a head of steam after being swept on Tuesday, a message he said he feels may have been lost on his players in the days between.

“Something I was trying to get them to understand was that Midlothian was going to come back and play better than they did on Tuesday,” Rogers said. “I don’t think they really took that to heart.”

Next up on the schedule for the Lady Jackets is a bidistrict playoff meeting with No. 5 Red Oak at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Cedar Hill High School.

Despite the loss on Friday, Rogers said after seeing how his team fought to end the regular season, Cleburne’s chances for an upset are still good.

“I still like our chances,” Rogers said. “We’ve beaten ranked teams before. I hope this will be an eye-opener for us where you realize you did something wrong and you need to fix it.”

Morgan Brown finished with 15 kills, four digs and a block while Aley Zachary had eight kills, a dig, a block and an ace.

Haylie Marshall had 10 digs and four kills and Kayla Ingram had a kill.

Kaci King had a kill, a dig and an ace while Callie McNulty had four kills a dig and a block.

Shelby Contreras had a kill, 20 digs, and an ace while Emma Tarver recorded eight digs in the loss.

Linsey Munguia had eight digs and four aces; Lacy Stinebaugh had nine digs, two aces and 30 assists and Danika Slokovic had three digs.