Lina Mayer played an outstanding game for Warsaw Thursday night as she led the Tigers in three statistical categories. (Photos by Nick Goralczyk)

WARSAW – The philosopher Miley Cyrus once proclaimed, “Pink isn’t just a color, it’s an attitude.”

There was plenty of pink, both in color and attitude, in the Tiger Den Thursday as Warsaw welcomed in Wawasee for its annual “Dig Pink” night. The event is held to raise money for the Kosciusko County Cancer Care Fund through various fundraiser before and during the game. Warsaw was able to make the pink jerseys look a little prettier in claiming a 3-0 win.

“We just wanted to go out and play clean,” began Warsaw head coach Mike Howard. “We played clean in the first and third sets, not as clean in that second set. We talked about, for the game, taking care of what we can control. That includes how we serve the ball, hopefully how we handle the ball and eliminating as many errors as possible. We did a good job of that in the first and third games and, again, not as well in the second.”

Howard’s team came out strong in the first game, winning 25-6 and would close the night out with a 25-12 win in the third, but that second game is what provided the most competition for the evening.

Wawasee jumped out to a small 2-0 lead and was able to hold that advantage for the first half of a back-and-forth contest with the Tigers. The Warriors held their lead until giving up a small run, Warsaw took that boost and used it to fuel an eventual 25-18 win in the second game.

“Warsaw just came out firing the ball at us in the first game,” began Wawasee head coach Ryan Edgar. “We’re not a real strong serve-receive team and Warsaw served unbelievably. That hurt us and we got down a little bit.

“In the second game, I don’t think our girls realized how close they were or how well they were playing with Warsaw. The girls don’t really know how to get themselves fired up and as a coach I’m trying to tell them to get excited. We had some plays to be excited about then Warsaw went on a run of four or five points and we put our heads down again. That carried over to the third game.”

Thursday’s “Dig Pink” event is something that Warsaw truly enjoys doing, as Howard talked about.

“It’s great,” remarked Howard. “Anytime that we can get lots of people in the gym and help the Cancer Care fund, it’s great. We always get excited about this. Several moms on the team are breast cancer survivors, so we just love to have this event and give back.”

Warsaw was led statistically by Cassie Hoag’s 27 assists, Peyton Adamiec added 25 digs. Lina Mayer was all over the court as she led the team with six kills, four aces and two blocks. 11 different Tigers recorded at least one kill.

Warsaw (14-7, 3-2) will host the Tiger Invitational this weekend while Wawasee (3-15, 0-4) will travel to the Crown Point Invite.

Warsaw won the JV match 25-17, 25-12.

Warsaw’s C-team beat Wawasee and Lakeland. Wawasee also beat Lakeland.