Cleveland’s volleyball team is now one step away from its first trip to the TSSAA state tournament.
Like, ever.
The Lady Blue Raiders, avenging a loss to Cookeville in their only previous sectional appearance in 2010, defeated the Lady Cavaliers 3-1 Tuesday night and captured the program’s first Region 3-3A championship at Cookeville High School.
“That’s a big deal for us and we’re excited,” Cleveland coach Trish Flowers said in a telephone interview. “The girls were on fire. They played well as a team, (communicated) well and never gave up. We came back from a seven-point deficit in the third game to win by the fight the girls had you could tell they wanted this win.”
Set scores were 25-19, 14-25, 25-22, 25-22.
Junior Emma Flowers, the tournament’s MVP, recorded a career record-high 31 kills to spark the Lady Raiders to the victory. Her previous high was 27 against East Hamilton earlier this season. Flowers also had four aces, one block, four assists and 10 service points.
Cleveland (35-13) will host a sectional match for the first time and face Region 4-3A runner-up Oakland (20-18) Thursday night at Raider Arena at 7 p.m. Siegel (36-8) beat Oakland 3-0 for the 4-3A championship on Tuesday.
“We weren’t nervous tonight and that was fantastic,” coach Flowers said. “As a coach you don’t know how the girls are going to be until they get out on the court. We struggled with serve/receive, but worked it out later and started serving well.
“When we got them out of system in serve/receive and started making good passes, we put the ball down. That was a consistent pattern in the third and fourth games and that was huge.”
Cleveland’s Amber Morman, Lauren Lee and Anna Renshaw also were selected to the all-tournament team.
Renshaw had 27 assists in the title match. Lee recorded 11 digs and 21 service points. Morman collected six kills.
STATISTICS
Amber Morman – 6 kills
Anna Renshaw – 1 ace, 10 digs, 5 kills, 27 assists, 15 service points
Emma Flowers – 31 kills, 4 aces, 1 block, 4 assists, 10 service points
Hannah Longley – 3 aces, 6 digs, 15 service points
Jessi Towe – 2 blocks, 1 kill
Lauren Lee – 2 aces, 11 digs, 5 assists, 21 service points
Morgan Moffett – 2 kills, 2 digs
Regan Fuller – 1 ace, 4 digs, 3 kills, 14 service points
Sammie Kate Eason – 2 digs
Sophia Lakatosh – 6 service points
(Contact Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and on Twitter @larryfleming44)