PINEDALE – The Pinedale Lady Wranglers girls’ volleyball team traveled to the champs’ Star Valley net for the Aug. 31 season opener and traded places back and forth to win two of four very close games.

“We came into the game knowing that it would be very challenging because Star Valley is defending state champs from last year,” said coach Tamara Currah. “They are also coached by a very good coach. We scouted Star Valley so we knew their strengths and weaknesses. My girls came out and played their hearts out.”

The Lady Wranglers made the most of their lessons, winning the first game, 25-22.

“They came back and won the second game, 25-15,” the coach said, with a shortfall in passing completions.

“The third game, the girls came out fighting and we won, 25-18,” Currah said. “They really played as a team.”

Then Star Valley took a foothold going into the fourth game and took charge again, 25-11. Currah said the passing was again a weak point “and that hurt our hitting game.”

The final and fifth game was closer and hard fought, with Star Valley only beating Pinedale with the score of 15-13.

The coach said she was very proud of her team’s efforts in that last matchup.

“I was really proud in this game because they never gave up,” she said. They fought til the end. Even though this was a loss for us, I was so proud of them at every level. Where these girls started and where they were on this particular night was amazing. As coaches, we were very proud of them.”

The girls were back home in Wrangler Gym to play Mountain View on Saturday afternoon, Sept. 2, which took the match in three games.

“This was a very hard game for us,” Currah said, at every level. “We struggled with passing this game. Without passing, it’s hard to put the ball down. It’s a game that we will learn from and go forward with what we learned.”

The final scores were Wind River winning over Pinedale 25-17, 25-17 and 25-9.

This week’s practices focused on passing and also “what it means to be mental tough,” Coach Currah said. “What we can learn from our last match and how we can grow and become stronger from it.”

Friday and Saturday, Sept. 8-9, the Lady Wranglers travel to the Rawlins Tournament for “hard pool play but it will only make us better in the long run.”

Then on Sept. 12, the Lady Wranglers travel to take on cross-county rivals the Lady Punchers in in Big Piney at 4 p.m.