A double-double by Tara Venable powered Ozark to back-to-back COC championships and a third straight victory against Nixa.
Venable collected 12 kills and 15 digs in the Lady Tigers’ 26-24, 25-15, 25-20 sweep of the Lady Eagles on Tuesday. Ozark (32-3) entered the match No. 3 in the All MO Sports Class 5 State Rankings and Nixa (29-3) No. 2.
Venable’s performance only added further confirmation Lady Tigers coach Adeanna Brewer made the right call by converting the junior outside hitter into a six-rotation player this season.
“She's taken on that role and shined,” Brewer said. “She is a hard hitter everywhere. That's something I wanted to offer, another source of offense for us from the back row. She’s obviously a beast at the net. She's a solid player all the way around. All of her game is at a high level.”
Brewer made the same move in recent years with former Lady Tigers greats Reagan Baade and Hannah Vorhies. Baade was named All-State her senior year as a six-rotation player and Venable could be on her way to the same honor. She’s flourished along the back row, even while not having much experience in school ball or club ball with serve-receiving and digging.
“I'm grateful coach Brewer has given me the opportunity to play back row. Not a lot of other coaches have given me that opportunity," Venable said. “During the summer, I started playing six rotations and coach told me, 'I can really see you here. How about you work on it?’”
Venable certainly wasn’t lacking for motivation to prove herself in the back row.
“I put in a lot of work," she said. “I'm so competitive. I love to be on the floor all the time. I love that I get to help my team in the front row and back row. I have a lot of energy all the time.”
On season, Venable is averaging 4.7 kills per set, in addition to 7.9 digs and 1.5 blocks a match.
Brewer points to Venable’s background as a doubles player in sand and beach volleyball as perfect preparation toward a hitter becoming a six-rotation player.
“Sand and beach helps her move her feet and body and make reads on balls to be able to make digs,” Brewer said.
Brewer would encourage more players with aspirations of being an all-around threat to do the same.
“If they are into it, I think it only elevates their game,” she said. “It's really good conditioning. Also, there are a lot of college opportunities (for beach volleyball) that are separate from indoors.”
Ozark’s sweep of Nixa saw the Lady Tigers execute their game plan all over the floor.
In addition to Venable’s double-double, Ozark received nine kills from Skylar Hilton, 36 assists from Reece Cook and 15 digs from Macy Humble.
“We were so determined and wanted to play for each other,” Venable said. “I trust Reece a lot and our back row gives her a lot of good balls to put her in a good position.”
"Our floor defensive unit worked really well to dig balls for our offense to able to work the net,” Brewer said. “We knew we were going to have to play disciplined blocking and play good floor defense.”
The Lady Tigers were happy their serving limited opportunities for Nixa middle hitter Chloe Judd at the net. She led the Lady Eagles with 12 kills.
“We tried getting them out of system a lot so they couldn't set her,” Venable said. “Our serves were really aggressive.”
“She's a fantastic player and we have so much respect for her,” Cook said “We made it a focus to keep them out of system so they couldn't run their ‘middle.’”
“They have really hard hitters, so we wanted to keep a lot of serving pressure on their serve-receive,” Brewer said. “If they're not in system, they can't as easily go to their middles.”
Ozark has had winning streaks of seven and 16 this season and breezed through the COC undefeated for the second year in a row. But the Lady Tigers were in rare bounce-back mode, after losing to Liberty at the Ozark Grand Slam over the weekend.
“We knew the best thing we could do to bounce back is stay in a competitive mindset and play Ozark volleyball,” Hilton said.
“We were here to make a statement and prove we're ready going into Districts,” Cook said. “We wanted to keep the energy up and control the tempo. I think we did a good job of that.”
The Lady Tigers are glad to have momentum on their side entering post-season play. They are the No. 1 seed for Class 5 District 6 and will meet Branson (13-8-4) in first-round action next week at Willard.
Nixa is the No. 2 seed and will open opposite Willard (12-16-1).
“Obviously we want to be really good in post-season and this is really good fuel for us going into District play. It gives us a lot of confidence,” Brewer said. “We've been looking to play at a high level and we achieved that tonight. I think this is going to give the girls confidence that this is how we can play over the next few weeks.”
