The Lady Badgers improved their overall record to 12- 11 after defeating Little River Academy Tuesday evening. Lampasas travels to Lorena today for a 5:30 p.m. start. PHOTO BY MICHAEL KUEHNE It was clear from the opening serve the Lady Badgers were in the swing of things.

After having a week off to fine-tune their overall game, the Lady Badgers traveled to Little River Academy on Tuesday and easily defeated the home team in straight sets.

The initial surge that propelled Lampasas to a 25-12, 25-18, 25-11 victory came on the match’s first play when middle hitter Madison Morris delivered a hard kill that sent the Lady Badgers’ emotions skyrocketing and the Bumblebees’ crashing.

“She just crammed that first ball down their throat,” Lampasas head coach Beth Rutland said. “That was the switch.

“We started off excited and pumped up off that play.”

Morris finished the match with a team-high seven kills to go with an ace and a block. The senior also recorded five assists as she filled in at setter for Kasandra Hirst, who is suffering from back pain.

“She just played smart and kept us going,” Rutland said of Morris. “She did a good job.”

Following the first-set victory, the Lady Badgers fell into a small lull but quickly recovered to clinch the win in the third set.

“We made a few hitting errors in the second set, and went back and forth for a little bit,” Rutland said. “I was just like, ‘Come on.’

“In the first game, we held them to just one kill.”

But it did not take long for the Lady Badgers to get back into the grove, as they improved to 12-11 on the season with the victory.

Senior Kendal Conner posted four kills and a block in the road win, while junior Tealey Farquhar finished with four aces and seven digs. Ashley Moore had three aces in the match, and Mariah Jones recorded 10 assists to lead the team.

Junior outside hitter Hailey Morrison, who typically is an offensive threat for Lampasas, had quiet match with just three kills and one ace, but, according to Rutland, she was instrumental in the Lady Badgers’ successful outing.

“A lot of stuff was going Madison’s way because we were sending the ball her way,” the coach said. “wasn’t that [Morrison] was making mistakes.

“The strongest part of Hailey’s game was her passing on serve receive, and because of that we were able to get good passes and good swings on serve receive.”

The Lady Badgers return to the court tonight when they travel to face Lorena. Tipoff for the varsity match is set for 5:30 p.m.

“Lorena is good,” Rutland said. “They are just a tough school, so we’ll have our hands full.”

After tonight’s match, the Lady Badgers will be off for a full week before traveling to Killeen on Sept. 17.

Lampasas opens its district schedule at home against Liberty Hill on Sept. 24.

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Lampasas’ subvarsity teams split their matches at Little River Academy. The freshmen lost 25-12, 25-11, but the junior varsity team improved to 15-4 with a 25-23, 23- 25, 25-19 victory.

The junior varsity will open tonight’s matches at 4:30 p.m., and the freshmen are scheduled to play at 7 p.m.