Lady Owls Thump Lady 'Canes For 36th Straight 5-3A Regular-Season Volleyball Win

Ooltewah’s like Old Man River.

The Lady Owls just keep rolling along.

Sparked by Alex Biro’s 19 kills and Summer Williams picking up her 1,000^th career dig, Ooltewah raced past rival East Hamilton, 3-0, Thursday to wrap up its third consecutive 12-0 regular-season volleyball campaign.

Sparked by Alex Biro’s 19 kills and Summer Williams picking up her 1,000^th career dig, Ooltewah raced past rival East Hamilton, 3-0, Thursday to wrap up its third consecutive 12-0 regular-season campaign.

“That says that we stay disciplined and focused on our goal,” said Biro, who added 3.5 blocks, two aces and five digs.

“And we work really hard to protect our reputation.”

The game scores were 25-17, 25-16 and 25-11 and the Lady Hurricanes have yet to beat the Lady Owls.

“They’re a good team,” East Hamilton coach Kristy Lenoir said. “You have to play your best and they have to make some errors for you to do anything against them. We started off with a lot of energy and just went down as the match went on.”

For the third straight year the Lady Owls (34-8, 12-0) head into next week’s District 5-3A tournament as the No. 1 seed. As the pre-tournament favorite, Ooltewah has a first-round bye will play the winner of the No.4 vs. No. 5 seeded teams on Tuesday at 5 p.m.

The Lady Owls will be gunning for their fourth straight district tournament title.

The 4-5 game opens the tournament on Monday at 4:30 p.m. followed by the 3-6 seeds at 6 p.m. and 2-7 seeds at 7:30 p.m.

Semifinals are scheduled for Tuesday and the championship match will be played Wednesday at 6 p.m.

Thursday wasn’t Ooltewah’s final match before the tournament. The Lady Owls will compete in the Middle Tennessee Classic in Murfreesboro on Friday and Saturday.

“Then we’ll be ready for the tournament,” Lady Owls coach Elaine Peigen said. “We’re playing well right now. We have some little things we need to tweak, but overall we’re doing OK. We haven’t had trouble serving until today – we missed more than nine serves – and we’ll have to work on that.”

Williams picked up her 999^th dig on Tuesday in a win over Soddy-Daisy, but the match ended with her still needing one to reach the 1,000-dig plateau.

“I thought about that a lot,” Williams said, “and I kept going back to plays that I may have missed. But today was a new game and I wasn’t worried about the past. It was good to get the one I needed out of the way early so I could just play ball. I couldn’t have done it without my team behind me. Just no way.”

The milestone dig came on a point ended by Biro’s kill that gave Ooltewah a 5-1 lead. Williams added 14 more and heads into weekend play with 1,014 career digs. She also had six aces and three kills against the Lady Hurricanes.

“That’s great,” Peigen said. “We’ve been waiting for it all year. She’s a great defensive player, a great server and it’s exciting that it happened during her senior year.”

Said Biro, “Sidney Killingsworth had a monster slam against Soddy-Daisy to end the match with Summer at 999. But we were like, ‘Bodda bing, bodda boom, she’ll get the first one against East Hamilton, and she did. That was awesome.”

Trailing 11-5 in Game 1, Emma Lenoir of East Hamilton (20-15, 5-7) scored on a patented kill and Williams’ slap shot went side-out. But the Lady Owls, with Williams serving, put up two points on Hannah Henderson and Biro slaps.

A Williams serve went long, but Courtney Swafford notched a slam, Hanna Matthews blocked Lenoir at the net and Biro got a kill from a Matthews set and Ooltewah had a 16-8 advantage.

Matthews also registered 35 assists, three aces, three digs and three blocks.

The Lady Hurricanes pulled within 20-14 on Lenoir’s deep two-handed push. Madison Hayes’ tap dropped wide and the Lady Owls’ Alexis Godsey scored on a service point and the Lady Hurricanes followed with an error at the net and fell behind, 23-14.

Lenoir scored on back-to-back monster kills, each one grazing the face of Ooltewah defenders, to cut East Hamilton’s deficit to seven points. Lenoir finished with 14 kills and seven digs.

Matthews blocked Lenoir, Williams served into the next and Biro’s kill ended the game.

Ooltewah, which ended the 2014 season with losses in the Region 3-3A title game and the sectional and finished 48-9, saw its lead in Game 2 whittled to 15-13 on Lenoir’s kill and an error on its end of the court.

The Lady Owls ran off eight straight points – Biro had two kills and a slap and the Lady Hurricanes contributed three unforced errors – to extend the lead to 23-13.

East Hamilton scored three in a row, two off Ooltewah on a net-serve and error, but Biro registered another kill and a service point to end the game.

“We’ve been on a roller coaster all year,” Kristy Lenoir said. “I’ve got a big difference in age with my players and that’s to be expected. It’s not surprising that some days we’ll do well and other days we’re not so good.

“When we’re out there with three eighth-graders on the floor and other players that might not have played much at all and you’re going up against upperclassmen, that’s a big deal. And the ball’s coming at those young girls a lot faster than ever before. It’s a huge challenge in a lot of way.”

The Lady Hurricanes hung with Ooltewah and trailed 14-10 after a winning tap by Hillary English.

Then, the roller coaster took a nose dive.

Ooltewah scored 11 of the next 12 points – Jadyn Raschke got the surge started with a slap and tip while Biro contributed a tip, a slap and her 19^th kill to end the match.

“We played consistently throughout this match, which has been a struggle during the regular season,” Biro said. “We’re all proud of playing like we did (tonight) and if we carry that over into next week, with our knowledge of all the other players and teams – we know them like the back of our hands – it will be very successful.”

STATISTICS

Ooltewah

Alex Biro – 19 kills, 3.5 blocks, 2 aces, 5 digs

Hanna Matthews – 1 kill, 35 assists, 3 aces, 3 digs, 3 blocks

Alexis Godsey – 2 aces, 11 digs

Hannah Henderson – 9 kills, 4 blocks

Courtney Swafford – 3 kills, 3 aces, 10 digs

Sidney Killingsworth – 1 kill, 1 dig, 1.5 blocks

Summer Williams – 6 aces, 15 digs, 3 kills

Shelby Sutton – 3 kills, 3 digs, 1 block

Jadyn Raschke – 2 digs

McKenzi Mansfield – 1 kill

East Hamilton

Tori Harris – 1 kill, 8 digs, 15 assists

Hillary English – 1 kill, 9 digs

Kayli Jones – 1 kill, 1 dig

Emma Lenoir – 14 kills, 7 digs

Madison Hayes – 1 kill, 2 digs

Jordyn Griffith – 1 block

Jillian Myers – 1 kill, 5 digs

Morgan Ralls – 5 digs

(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)