Baylor's Nadia Sixto skies high above the net too deliver a kill shot against Knox catholic Wednesday in a TSSAA Division II-AA State Volleyball Tournament elimination game. The Lady fighting Irish took down the Lady Red Raiders, 3-1 (23-25, 25-15, 25-23, 29-27) The loss ends Baylor's season at 30-10.
photo by Dennis Norwood
MURFREESBORO – The third time wasn’t the charm for the Baylor volleyball team here at MTSU’s Murphy Center Wednesday afternoon.
Facing the Knoxville Catholic Lady Irish in the losers bracket final of the TSSAA D-II-AA state volleyball tournament for the third time this season, the result was the same as the previous two these teams had battled.
Baylor won a tough first set by a 25-23 final, but couldn’t sustain that same effort the rest of the way as the Lady Irish won the next three sets by scores of 25-15, 25-23 and 29-27.
Baylor’s season ends at 30-10 while Catholic is now 27-7.
The Lady Irish will now face defending state champ Briarcrest in Thursday’s championship match. The Lady Saints beat Catholic in Wednesday’s first match by scores of 25-17, 25-22, 20-25 and 26-24.
Baylor had battled for all they were worth in two opening-round matches on Tuesday, losing to Briarcrest in three sets by a total of seven points before staying alive with another tough fight against Harpeth Hall.
There was virtually no way that Baylor would be able to match Tuesday’s intensity, either physically or emotionally.
Sarah Lail has been Baylor’s coach for the past 11 years and her teams have always advanced to the state tournament. They’ve won two titles and have finished worse than third.
Considering that Baylor graduated five seniors from last year’s state runner-up team, it’s a real tribute that Lail and assistant coaches Kurt Emmanuel, Jennifer Summers and Jennifer Redman made it back with a roster loaded with new faces.
“We gave it everything we had today, but we simply made too many mistakes against a really good Knox Catholic team,” said Lail after a brief post-match talk with her team.
“We were down in the fourth set and battled back to make it close. That’s what Baylor volleyball is all about. We played our hearts out for two straight days and we knew we’d have to go through Catholic and Briarcrest to win. After all the players we lost from last year’s team, a lot of folks didn’t think we’d be very good this year.
“You just have to be able to perform when you get to this level. We have some really outstanding players coming back and I look forward to the future,” Lail concluded.
Junior Elaine Redman is one of those players who will be returning next year. She had an incredible tournament and finished with a triple-double for the third straight match.
She had 19 kills, 16 assists and 16 digs, but it simply wasn’t enough to beat the Lady Irish.
Baylor got off to a great start in the opening set, racing to a 10-4 lead before Catholic called its first timeout. The difference was 20-15 before the Lady Irish came back.
A block and three straight kills by Grainne McGrath allowed Catholic to turn a 20-18 deficit into a 22-20 lead, but the Lady Irish made some critical hitting errors that allowed Baylor to win that first set.
Baylor scored the first three points of the second set before the Lady Irish again came storming back. The score was tied six times – the last being at 11-11 – before Catholic took charge with seven straight points on the strength of strong serving from Devyn Dunn.
A Baylor hitting error made it 19-11 and it never got any closer as the Lady Irish gained more and more confidence with each passing point.
Possibly the biggest turning point came in the third set and the match tied at one set apiece. Three straight service points from Libby May knotted the score at 23-23, but just as quickly, Carlee Hart had a kill and Baylor ran into the net to give Catholic a 2-1 lead.
The Lady Irish scored five of the first six points in the fourth set and it looked like it might be an easy win, but Baylor wasn’t quite ready to toss in the white towel.
The lead was 16-7 before the comeback started in earnest. Kills from Redman, Nadia Sixto and Sierra Herndon knotted the score at 24-24. Another kill from Tess Margio a minute later gave Baylor its last lead at 27-26.
Two Baylor hitting errors gave Catholic the one-point lead while another kill from McGrath clinched the match for the Lady Irish.
While Redman had another outstanding match, Laura Kate May had 20 digs in her final match for the Lady Red Raiders. Younger sister Libby had 20 assists and a dozen digs while Sixto and Herndon both had five blocks.
BAYLOR STATS:
Emma Gray – 1 ace, 1 assist, 10 digs
Tess Margio – 7 kills
Libby May – 1 ace, 1 kill, 20 assists, 12 digs
Madison Cope – 2 kills, 1 block, 4 digs
Laura Kate May – 1 assist, 20 digs
Elli Kinney – 1 block, 8 digs
Nadia Sixto – 1 kill, 5 blocks
Julia Hartman – 1 ace, 11 digs
Holland Moss – 1 kill, 2 blocks
Elaine Redman – 1 ace, 19 kills, 16 assists, 16 digs
Sierra Herndon – 9 kills, 5 blocks.
(email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)