Chattanooga Christian Sweeps Notre Dame In 7-AA Volleyball

Lady Irish Suffer First Loss Despite Spirited Home Crowd

Tuesday, August 26, 2014
John Hunt

It didn't matter that the Chattanooga Christian volleyball team was on the road Tuesday night. Who cared that they were playing one of their biggest rivals in District 7-AA in a loud and spirited Jack Steiner Sr. Gymnasium at Notre Dame High School.

None of those factors came into play as the Lady Chargers were ready to play and the Lady Irish were not.

The results showed as those visitors from South Broad headed back home with an impressive 3-0 victory, winning by scores of 25-19, 25-15 and 27-25.

CCS improves to 6-4 overall and 2-0 in 7-AA while Notre Dame is now 2-1 overall and 1-1 in district play.

Four straight service points -- including three aces -- by Cassie Curry allowed the Lady Chargers to stretch a 4-3 lead in the first set to 8-3. It was 12-4 a short time later as CCS appeared to be clicking on all cylinders as they slowly pulled away for the six-point win.

The second set was similar to the first.

Notre Dame scored the first three points and had a 5-3 lead when Madison Schuster recorded four straight service points to give the Lady Chargers their first lead.

The score was knotted at 11-all when Taylor Youell strung together seven straight service points as CCS took charge and never looked back.

The third set was worth the price of admission, but it was just a matter of too little and too late for Notre Dame.

An ace by Emily Henderson gave CCS a seemingly-comfortable 17-10 lead when Notre Dame called a timeout.

It looked like the Lady Chargers just might breeze to another win, but the Lady Irish had other ideas.

Playing their best volleyball of the day, Notre Dame slowly came back. A pair of kills from Tess Scobey allowed the CCS lead to be cut to 22-20. Another three-point run by the Lady Irish knotted the score at 24-all, but just when the momentum appeared to be shifting Notre Dame's way, a long serve gave the Lady Chargers the lead.

With the score tied once more at 25-all, Curry had a block before finishing the match with an ace.

"I'm really proud of these girls as we're playing well as a team," said CCS coach Brian Wood shortly after the match ended.

"We're scrappy and we wanted to win. I thought we served tough today and that sort of took them out of their offense as they have some really good hitters up front. It seemed like all of our matches with them last year all went five sets, but we talked about winning in three straight today.

"I knew we could do it. It was loud in here today, but we never lost focus," Wood added.

Notre Dame coach Ted Hackett felt like his girls simply weren't ready to compete when the match began.

"That was just a poor effort on our part. Our serving was bad and our passing was bad. And we had way too many unforced errors," he said, admitting that his team had 43 such miscues.

"We're a much better team than that, but we just didn't have a very good effort today. Chattanooga Christian has a very good team and we can't afford to give away points like that. We just have to execute better than that, but we go to Pikeville to play Bledsoe County on Thursday and I hope we can get back on track then," he added.

Henderson finished with five kills while Hannah Stewart contributed 14 digs for the winners. Youell and Curry both finished with five aces.

Scobey had eight kills and Mallory Hein 26 digs for Notre Dame. Ragen Dobson finished the match with 25 assists.

HIXSON IMPROVED TO 5-4 overall and 1-0 in District 6-AA with a 3-0 win at Brainerd Tuesday.

Paige Lawson had 10 kills, nine aces and six digs to lead the Lady Wildcats while Bailey Burba had 14 aces and 23 assists for the winners.

CHATTANOOGA CHRISTIAN STATS:

Taylor Youell -- 5 aces

Hannah Stewart -- 14 digs

Emily Henderson -- 5 kills, 3 aces

Riley Visser -- 4 kills

Annika Fischer -- 2 blocks

Madison Schuster -- 3 aces, 3 kills

Cassie Curry -- 5 aces.