The Sale Creek Middle School volleyball team.
photo by Contributed
It’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks for Debbie Hill and her Sale Creek volleyball family and they’re not over yet.
The Sale Creek varsity is in the midst of a 37-match winning streak that included winning their eighth straight Region 3-A title Tuesday night. Debbie was the long-time head coach for the Lady Panthers, but now is an assistant to her younger daughter Erin.
In addition to her work with the high school team, Debbie is also the head coach for the Sale Creek Middle School team that qualified for the first-ever middle school state tournament last weekend in Franklin.
And that’s not to mention that Debbie was inducted into Sale Creek’s first Hall of Fame class two weeks ago.
The tournament began on Thursday with pool play. After a couple of matches that day, Debbie and her husband Warren made a quick trip back home, arriving shortly after midnight. At 2:30 the next morning, they went with Erin and her husband Kyle to the hospital where Erin gave birth to her second child about 5 a.m. on Friday.
There was no time to waste as Debbie and Warren turned right back around and returned to Franklin for a match at 10 a.m.
The Lady Panthers finished third in that state tournament as they won four of the six matches and finished the season at 25-4. And now, the varsity is preparing to host Gordonsville on Thursday night in the sectional round with hopes of advancing to the high school state tournament next week in Murfreesboro.
“It seems like I’ve been involved in coaching sports at Sale Creek all my life, but in a small school like we have, you just do whatever you need to do,” Debbie expressed on Tuesday afternoon before the region tournament began.
“We lost our first match of the season to Ooltewah and never thought we’d make it to the state as we have such a young team, but they made steady improvement after that. We won our district at Red Bank and then finished second in the sectional at Anderson County and were the only team from Chattanooga at the state,” Debbie continued.
There are 25 young ladies on the Sale Creek Middle School team, including a dozen on the varsity that has four eighth graders, seven seventh graders and one sixth grader. Cleveland, Lake Forrest and Signal Mountain all went to the sectional round, but Sale Creek was the only one that advanced.
At one point, the high school and middle school seasons were played at different times, but this was the first year where they played at the same time.
“I was against it at first, but it’s been a great opportunity for these younger girls to learn about the sport and to get to know the older girls. I’ve really enjoyed coaching these younger girls as they really like to play. They worked hard and had a lot of fun. And the parents have been great too as they cheered, danced and dressed up for the state tournament. They had as much fun as anyone,” Debbie laughed.
Addi Hughes is an eighth grader and the leading setter on the team while Leighton McKee is also an eighth grader and an outstanding hitter. Ava Moore is just a seventh grader who is playing volleyball for the second year, but she may be the best player of all.
The Sale Creek girls finished with a 25-4 record, including a 4-2 mark at the state. After losing in the championship semifinals, they beat Unicoi to finish the season on a winning note.
“It has all been such a blur as everything has happened so fast, but it’s been a great year for us all the way around,” Debbie concluded.
Hill has been involved in developing a program that has been successful and a winner from start to finish. From the looks of things and the results from the middle school team, it looks like the future is bright for Sale Creek volleyball.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)