Bentonville West volleyball coach Julie Rowan doesn’t want to jinx anything by proclaiming the Lady Wolverines have arrived.

But she’ll gladly take the team’s 1-0 start to the 7A-West season.

The second-year program looked like a seasoned veteran in Thursday’s dominate 25-21, 25-11, 25-17 win over Van Buren.

“We have made a lot of improvements,” Rowan said. “Last year was such a rough year for us, so every win we get is really good for building confidence in the girls. (But) we’ve still got quite a few young girls. I thought we played pretty awesome.”

So did Van Buren coach Brent Reeves.

“We never could anything going against Bentonville West,” he said. “Every time we sent it over, they (Wolverines) put it down. We just never could get any momentum going.”

The Wolverines’ front row gave the slow-starting pointers fits. Sophomores Avery Kniss and Kortney Puckett defused Van Buren’s attack with block after block. West freshman outside hitter Emerson Traweek finished with six kills, and junior libero Shae O’Brien added four aces.

“That No. 22 (Puckett), she really did a good job, and the outside hitter (Traweek) did a good job,” Reeves said. “We were having to play defense the whole time, because they kept hitting it at us. We had a hard time getting our offense going.”

Van Buren (4-3, 0-1) has had a habit of overcoming slow starts this season. They nearly overcame Southside last week before losing in five, and they overcame two deficits last week against Alma.
