They saved the best match for last on Monday night at Hixson High School in the opening round of the District 6-AA volleyball tournament.
Top-seeded Red Bank had a first-round bye, but the other six teams played and there were no upsets along the way as Hixson, Central and East Ridge all advanced.
Second-seed Hixson rolled past Brainerd by scores of 25-6, 25-10 and 25-13 while third-seeded Central eliminated Howard by scores of 25-10, 25-5 and 25-10. Then in the final match of the day, fourth-seeded East Ridge had to fight a little harder before getting past fifth-seeded Tyner, winning the match 3-1 by scores of 25-18, 25-18, 23-25 and 25-11.
The tournament will conclude on Tuesday with two semifinals followed by the championship match.
Red Bank-East Ridge is first on the list at 4:30 followed by Central-Hixson. The winner of those two matches will then play for the tournament title and both will advance to next week’s region tournament.
Hixson looked lackadaisical in its match with the Lady Panthers as the Lady Wildcats just didn’t seem to be interested in being there. Despite that, the Lady Wildcats were able to advance without any problem.
“I’m just glad that first match is over,” said Hixson coach Janet Tate afterward.
“I’m not at all pleased with our serving today and we’ve worked on that a lot in recent weeks. It’s a mental thing and we just didn’t have a very good approach today,” Tate added.
Abby Rector and Dakota Rawiszer both had seven kills for Hixson while Courtney Jones followed with six. Rawiszer also had seven digs while Sam Dove had nine assists. Sam McKee had four aces.
The Central Lady Purple Pounders evened their record for the season at 15-15 after beating a much-improved Howard team.
Gwendolyn Sofield had eight kills for Central while Keri Sylvester had 10 assists. Taleah Williams ended the match with seven aces and seven digs.
Central coach Jeremy Rogers knows that his team will have to be better on Tuesday to have a chance against Hixson.
“We need to do a better job of talking and communicating. I know Hixson does a good job of that and we’ll have to match their intensity for us to have a chance of beating them. Our passing was good today and our serving was good at times as we wanted to serve hard today,” he said later.
“We came out with good intensity as we were relaxed, loose and ready to play. Howard has improved quite a bit since we played them the first time, so we couldn’t afford to overlook them,” Rogers added.
The third match between East Ridge and Tyner was by far the best of the day.
The Lady Pioneers won the first two sets by identical 25-18 scores before Tyner picked up the pace and took the third, 25-23. Then in the fourth set when the momentum had clearly shifted to Tyner’s side, East Ridge senior Mya Adams took matters into her own hands.
Literally.
The Lady Rams were rolling along with a 7-5 when Adams went to the service line. She single-handedly turned things around for the Lady Pioneers as she recorded 15 straight service points and had seven of her 11 aces during that stretch as that 7-5 deficit turned into a 20-7 lead.
It didn’t take long after that for the Lady Pioneers to claim victory and move on to the next round.
“That was just ridiculous,” said East Ridge coach Kerilyn Monger after her team had pulled out the win.
“We just sit back and expect things to go our way, but we have to prove that we want to be here and we didn’t play like it tonight. We may have been looking ahead as Red Bank is our biggest rival, but we struggle with consistency and we just weren’t focused on the right things.
“We just don’t use our brain as we make it hard on ourselves. We are a good-hitting team and a whole lot better than what we showed tonight. Hopefully, we’ll play better tomorrow,” she added.
Kyanna Kendrick had a dozen kills for East Ridge while Kayla Murphy followed with nine. While Adams was tops with 11 aces, Casiee Jordan was outstanding at times with eight.
HIXSON STATS:
Courtney Jones – 2 aces, 6 kills, 5 digs
Sam Dove – 9 assists, 3 aces, 2 kills, 3 digs
Sam McKee – 4 aces, 3 kills, 1 dig
Dakota Rawiszer – 1 assist, 1 ace, 7 kills, 7 digs
Marly Fitzpatrick – 1 ace, 2 digs
Rachel Cline – 2 aces, 5 digs
Sydni Byerley – 1 ace, 1 kill, 3 digs
Kiera Taylor – 3 aces, 2 kills, 6 digs
Shelby Rector – 1 ace, 4 kills, 3 digs
Gabby Tench – 1 assist, 1 ace, 2 digs
Abby Rector – 7 kills.
CENTRAL STATS:
Brooke Parrott – 1 ace, 5 kills, 3 digs
Jasmine Mosley – 1 kill
Lauren Rievely – 1 ace
Amanda Roy – 1 kill, 2 digs
Alyssa Barclay – 3 aces, 1 kill
Taleah Williams – 7 aces, 7 digs
Keri Sylvester – 5 aces, 3 kills, 10 assists, 2 digs
Gracee Webb – 2 aces, 1 kill, 3 assists
Gwendolyn Sofield – 8 kills, 4 digs
Zariah McDonald – 1 ace, 3 digs
Olivia Rawl – 1 ace
Aubree Traylor – 1 kill.
EAST RIDGE STATS:
Mya Adams – 11 aces, 5 kills
Rickell Hill – 3 kills, 2 aces
Kayla Murphy – 9 kills
Kyanna Kendrick – 12 kills
Casiee Jordan – 8 aces.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)