Baytown Sterling seniors Alyssa Cotton and Priscilla Massengale were lethal at the net Tuesday night as the Rangers swept visiting Nimitz, 25-12, 25-8, 25-12 in a non-district match.

Cotton had a game-high 14 kills for the Rangers (10-3) and Massengale had 10. Nimitz, which dropped to 2-6 on the year, was led by Chanigua Hoskins, who recorded a team-high eight kills.

Rangers coach Nadine Horne said the way the Rangers won the way she expected.

“It was a good, relaxing game for us,” Horne said. “We ran our offense pretty much the way we wanted and did just about everything we wanted to do.”

Horne also felt that Massengale’s play on offense was the difference maker in the game as did third-year Nimitz varsity coach Lea Sims-Nguyen.

“She (Massengale) was amazing,” Sims-Nguyen said. “But I think experience played a big factor too. We only have one returning starter from a team that made the playoffs last year. Our team is made up mostly of juniors.”

The Rangers' ability to pass and sets shots up for Cotton and Massengale at the net proved to be the difference in all three games. Nimitz was able to jump out to an early 5-3 lead in the first game before the two Ranger seniors began recording spikes and kills almost at will.

The Rangers cruised to a 21-12 lead in the first game before scoring four straight points to grab game one. In game two, Sterling got out to a 4-2 lead and never looked back. Nimitz scored just eight points in the second game.

Game three was much the same with Cotton and Massengale controlling the offense, but Nimitz did make a game of it by pulling to within five points at 13-8.

But again Cotton and Massengale grabbed control of game when they both recorded two momentum changing kills at 15-8 and 20-10.