Silverdale Beats Grace In D-IIA East Thriller, 3-2

Baylor Goes 4-3 In Nike Tournament Of Champions Over The Weekend

Monday, October 2, 2017
John Hunt

Silverdale Baptist's Kayleigh Page (22) does battle with Grace Academy's Lainey Barrow and Megan Long (3) during their match on the Lady Golden Eagles' home floor Monday evening. The Lady Seahawks bested Grace in a hard-fought 3-2 battle.
photo by Dennis Norwood

There’s not another sport in the world where momentum swings are any more significant than volleyball.

Such was the case at Grace Academy Monday evening.

The Silverdale Lady Seahawks had a losing record during the regular season, but they’ve been playing better in recent matches and that carried over to Monday’s match with the Grace Academy Lady Golden Eagles.

These two teams split during the regular season, but Silverdale now has the upperhand at 2-1 with its second straight win over Grace.

The latest one is much more significant as it allows Silverdale to advance in the Division II, Class A East region with a five-set win.

Silverdale won the first two sets by scores of 27-25 and 25-12 before Grace rallied to win the next two by scores of 28-26 and 25-19. Then in the winner-take-all fifth set, Silverdale rallied from a 6-2 deficit to prevail by a final score of 15-13.

With the win, Silverdale stays alive and will play at top-seeded Boyd-Buchanan on Tuesday at 6. The Lady Seahawks guaranteed themselves at least fourth place in this tournament and will advance to the next round next week, which will be played in Knoxville.

Silverdale coach Brian Wood was quite happy – and relieved – once this latest battle with one of his team’s biggest rivals ended.

“We knew we needed to own the first ball contact, but we also felt like we needed to serve aggressively, pass well and put the ball down when it counted. We did all of those things pretty well in the first two sets,” he said after his team had improved to 11-18 for the season.

“We still have a lot to work on and we have to be better defensively. We had to regroup after that fourth set, but we got our ship headed in the right direction in the fifth. That’s the first match all year where we won the fifth set.

“Blocks were a key for us, but we played for each other. We let a couple of bad calls get to us in the fourth set, but were able to turn things around in time to win,” he added.

Grace was the more dominant team in the first set and led most of the way, its biggest advantage at 14-7 following an ace by Megan Long. Silverdale then starting playing much better and scored nine of the next 12 points, leading to a timeout by Grace coach Hillary Waters.

Another ace by Long and a kill by Autumn Parrott allowed Grace to regain the upper hand at 24-22, but a couple of hitting errors allowed Silverdale to knot the score and they claimed the comeback win on a block from Katie Patrick and a kill from Kenzie Manning.

Everything that had been working for Grace suddenly stopped. The Lady Golden Eagles let that letdown carry over into the second set that Silverdale won without a challenge, 25-12.

The Lady Seahawks were playing with a lot of confidence at that point and dominated most of the third set with the biggest lead coming at 18-12 following a serving error by Grace.

Silverdale still had the upper hand at 23-21 before Maggie Long had two service points, including an ace, to knot the score. A kill from Julianna Hill gave Grace the lead at 26-25 before Kayleigh Page tied it once again with a kill for Silverdale.

A couple of questionable line calls allowed Grace to claim the third set and to avoid a sweep and that momentum carried over into the fourth set that Grace won by a 25-19 final.

Grace kept playing well and had a seemingly-comfortable 6-2 lead before the Seahawks called a timeout. Silverdale then scored six of the next seven points to get the momentum back on its side with an 8-7 lead.

Grace was able to tie the score twice in the waning moments, but the Golden Eagles never regained the lead and Silverdale was able to claim the hard-fought match on a block by Patrick.

Coach Waters couldn’t say enough about the valiant effort her girls put forth, but the early hole they dug was simply too much to get out of.

“We made too many errors, but the girls put forth a valiant effort. The ball just didn’t fall in our favor tonight,” she said as the gymnasium was still clearing out.

“It’s really tough to come back from a 2-0 deficit, but we fought back hard and got a lot of valuable experience today. We didn’t cover Silverdale’s tips as well as we should have, but we were a lot better than people thought we’d be this year.

“We put it all out there tonight and gave it our best shot. Unfortunately, we came out on the short end,” she concluded.

Patrick had 14 kills to lead Silverdale while Manning had a dozen kills and 13 digs. Ana Vereen had 21 digs while Emma Dale had 14. Savannah Gann had 41 assists while Patrick and Page both had five blocks for the winners.

Megan Long had 16 kills and 16 digs for Grace while Maggie Long was credited with 32 digs. Abby McGaughey finished with 39 assists.

THE BAYLOR GIRLS had a positive learning experience in Arizona over the weekend as they finished 21^st out of 74 teams in the Nike Tournament of Champions in Phoenix. Baylor lost its first three matches on Friday, but came back to win three of four on Saturday and now stand at 34-4 for the season.

Ally Craig had 44 kills and 23 digs for the tournament while Zoe Ubamadu had 32 kills and 13 blocks. Sarah Sumida finished the weekend with 173 assists.

SILVERDALE STATS:

Ana Vereen – 21 digs

Caroline Dale – 1 kill, 2 blocks

Savannah Gann – 3 kills, 41 assists, 7 digs, 2 blocks

Harper Sutton – 1 ace, 14 digs

Kenzie Manning – 2 aces, 12 kills, 13 digs

Emma Dale – 2 aces, 5 kills, 14 digs

Katie Patrick – 1 ace, 14 kills, 5 digs, 5 blocks

Kayleigh Page – 1 ace, 9 kills, 3 digs, 5 blocks.

GRACE STATS:

Autumn Parrott – 14 kills, 5 digs

Maggie Long – 5 kills, 32 digs, 1 ace