The Nixa Eagles will face off against the Waynesville Tigers at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday. The teams are on pretty different trajectories at the moment (Nixa has seven straight wins, Waynesville has nine straight defeats), but none of that matters once you're on the court.
Nixa is coming in fresh off a high-stakes matchup with another one of Missouri's top teams: Kickapoo, who was ranked 16th at the time (Nixa was ranked tenth). The Eagles snuck past the Chiefs with a 3-2 victory on Tuesday.
Nixa had a slow start but a hot finish: after dropping the first two sets, they turned around to win the next three. The final set scores came out to 23-25, 21-25, 25-16, 26-24, 15-13.
Nixa got their win on the backs of several key players, but it was Peyton Creed out in front who had 23 assists, 20 digs, and three aces. The team also got some help from Mara Coulter, who had 32 digs and four assists.
Meanwhile, Waynesville came up short against Glendale on Tuesday, falling 3-0.
While Waynesville was not able to put a set on the board, they still kept things close, especially in the first set. Once all was said and done, the final set scores wound up at 25-22, 25-9, 25-13.
Waynesville has now lost 12 of their last 13 games at home. That's part of the reason why they have a 3-23 record this season. As for Nixa, they have now won nine of their last 11 games at home. That's helped them to a 24-8 record this season.
