MONTICELLO — The Lady Panthers of Monticello visited Sullivan West to take on the Lady Bulldogs to open the season on Wednesday, September 6, and took the match in straight sets - winning 25-14, 25-23 and 26-24. Despite the match as a whole being one-sided, each set remained fairly competitive - especially the final two. In the first set, Monticello scored the first 14 points before Sullivan West finally broke through. 

“Junior Deeanna Mann did a fantastic job of setting the tone early on in set one with strong serves allowing us to score off of her 14 consecutive serves,” said Monticello coach Sheila Burns. 

The Lady Panthers got behind 14-9 early in the second set, but after several back and forths in scoring were able to tie it up at 20 a piece.  The two teams were then knotted up again at 23-23, before Monticello scored two straight points to take the set. A similar trend occurred in the third set, but this time Sullivan West worked from behind on 5-9 and 8-11 deficits to take a 14-12 lead. They would wind up taking a 22-20 lead later and then 24-21, before surrendering five straight points for the Lady Panthers to take the set and the match.  

In Monticello’s second match of the season on Friday, September 8, they hosted Pine Bush in the Lady Panthers’ home opener. The result was the opposite of their first match, as Pine Bush did to them what Monticello did to Sullivan West. Monticello got behind early and was really never able to recover - losing by set scores of 25-5, 25-17 and 25-8.