What a difference a week makes.

On their heels following last week’s loss to North Little Rock, the Southside Mavericks swept Mount St. Mary Thursday, 25-18, 25-13, 25-15, to improve to 3-2 in the 7A-Central.

Emily Bass had 12 kills and Hannah Holland finished with nine to pace the Mavericks.

“I think after North Little Rock, we started off really strong, and for us to go down hill so fast really messed up our mentality, so I think these two wins this week really brought us back to where we should be,” Holland said. “We’ve been working at practice to get closer as a team, so just trusting each other was a big part of it. We covered everyone really well tonight.”

“We had some good balance and I thought our passing was the difference tonight,” Southside coach Steve Haaser said. “I thought Hailey Hogue probably had her best game as far as her accuracy with passing.”

Seniors Sage Rankin and Emily Carman finished with five and four kills, respectively, for the Mavericks.

The loss dropped MSM to 8-4 and 2-3, respectively.

The Mavs started strong in the first set, building a 13-5 lead on a trio of Bass kills and another from Carman. The lead was still eight (19-11) before MSM whittled the deficit to 21-17.

After holding on in the opener, Southside built a 22-7 lead in the second set. Three kills by Bass and two by Carman led to the big lead.

After the Belles closed to within 22-12, Southside found another gear. Zoe Rogers’ kill, Holland’s block, and another smash by Bass finished off game two.

MSM finally forged its first lead of the match in the third game. But Southside erased the 3-2 deficit with a 6-0 run that included two kills by Bass.

Also for Southside, Hogue and Montana Smith finished with 19 and 15 digs, respectively.

Jenna Mullins added to her team lead with 18 assists. Sarah Tolbert finished with 12 assists.

“It’s still early in the season, it was good to get two conference wins this week,” Haaser said. “It was good to get back home and defend our home court.”

The Mavericks (7-5, 3-2) travel to Russellville this weekend and resume 7A-Central play Tuesday against Little Rock Central.
