The Conway Wampus Cats will face off against the Republic Tigers at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday. Both come into the matchup bolstered by wins in their previous matches.
Conway is coming in fresh off a high-stakes matchup with another one of Arkansas' top teams: Central, who was ranked fifth at the time (Conway was ranked seventh). The Wampus Cats came out on top against the Tigers by a score of 3-1 on Thursday. The victory made it back-to-back wins for the Wampus Cats.
Conway had a slow start but a hot finish: after dropping the first set, they turned around to win the next three. Once all was said and done, the final score wound up at 21-25, 25-10, 25-22, 25-17.
Meanwhile, it was close, but on Thursday Republic sidestepped Central for a 3-2 victory. The Tigers haven't had any issues with the Bulldogs recently, as the game was their fifth consecutive win against them.
Republic was actually outscored in aggregate across those five sets (102-101), but they still managed to win. The final score came out to 25-21, 13-25, 25-22, 23-25, 15-9.
Republic found their leader in sophomore Chloe Pullan, who had 19 assists and 12 digs. Avery Moore also deserves some recognition as she served her first aces of the season.
The victory got Republic back to even at 7-7-1. As for Conway, their win bumped their record up to 11-3.
Conway came out on top in a nail-biter against Republic in their previous matchup back in September of 2024, sneaking past 2-1. Do the Wampus Cats have another victory up their sleeve, or will the Tigers turn the tables on them? We'll have the answer soon enough.
