Lady Bruins finish second in 7-4A volleyball

Published 12:10 am Sunday, October 11, 2009

Northwest Whitfield may have won four games to Sequoyah’s three on Saturday at the Area 7-4A volleyball tournament, but the Lady Chiefs won when it counted most.

Sequoyah overcame an 0-2 deficit in the best-of-five title match at Dalton High to defeat the Lady Bruins, 21-25, 23-25, 25-16, 25-18, 27-25.

Earlier in the day, the Lady Bruins defeated Sequoyah, 25-17, 26-24, in the winner’s bracket final, sending the Lady Chiefs into the loser’s bracket, where they beat Sprayberry 25-18, 25-12 to earn a rematch with Northwest.

Lady Bruins coach Richard Taylor said his team started the championship match strong, but couldn’t finish.

“We played really well in the first two games,” he said. “And then, I felt like our play dropped off some and they picked it up. We let them get back into it when they beat us pretty good in the third game, and then in the fourth game, we never did pick it up. The fifth game we came out after we got behind and started playing well again but they pulled it out because they made the big plays at the end and we didn’t.”

The Lady Bruins (27-14) enter the Class 4A state playoffs as a No. 2 seed and will host the No. 3 seed from Area 3 on Thursday.

At Southeast, the Lady Raiders (23-17) hosted the Area 6-3A tournament and earned a No. 3 seed by beating Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe, 25-15, 25-18, to advance to the winner’s bracket final, where they lost to Heritage-Catoosa, 25-16, 14-25, 25-17, and were eliminated by Ringgold, 25-22, 25-22. Ringgold defeated Heritage in the 6-3A championship match in five games.

The Lady Raiders will travel to play Area 2’s No. 2 seed next Saturday.

Back at Dalton, the host Lady Catamounts (13-22) defeated Murray County (12-18), 25-9, 25-20, to earn 7-4A’s No. 4 seed for state before being eliminated by Sprayberry, 25-16, 25-18. The Lady Cats will travel to play the No. 1 seed from Area 3.

Area 7’s pairing with Area 3 in the 4A playoffs gives Dalton and Northwest the toughest possible starting position — 3-4A has four teams in GaSports.com’s Class 4A coaches poll: No. 1 Sandy Creek, No. 3 Whitewater, No. 4 Northgate and No. 10 Starr’s Mill.

Against Northwest, Lady Chiefs coach Kelly Audia said Sequoyah was able to rally because of the team’s senior leadership from setter Morgan Downie, outside hitter Morgan Page and middle blocker Britnee Jones, who played despite a 101-degree fever.

“The only thing we did strategically was flip-flop our lineup and give ourselves a good, new look at the whole match,” Audia said. “We felt like we had scouted (Northwest) pretty good, but the scouting didn’t matter when they were hitting over the top of us so much, so when we flip-flopped everyone had some energy in them and we came back that way.”

The Lady Chiefs originally thought they won the area championship when they went ahead 15-9 in Game 5. However, there was confusion among coaches and game officials as to whether the fifth match ended at 15 or 25, and Audia was given a yellow card for arguing.

The match was delayed more than 10 minutes while game officials called the 7-4A lead officials, who were also unclear on the rule. The lead officials eventually decided to let the match play to 25 with the understanding that Sequoyah would protest to the Georgia High School Association that they won at 15.

After the match ended, Lady Cats coach Lisa Donahue confirmed after reviewing the rule book that Game 5 should have ended at 15.

The Lady Bruins scored five straight points to pull within 15-14 after the delay, but never took the lead.

Despite the setback in the championship match, senior outside hitter Christy Robinson set the Northwest school record for most kills in a match with 22. On the day, Robinson finished with 29 kills and six blocks, while Quaneisha McCurty added 22 kills and seven blocks and Kelsey Kirk chipped in 14 kills and four blocks.

In 6-3A action, Lady Raiders coach Jake Dickey said his team’s struggles came down to fatigue.

“In the Heritage game we came out overly excited and put a bunch of pressure on ourselves,” he said. “We calmed down, but I don’t know what happened. It looked liked we were drained of our energy. But we made state and that’s what matters.”

The Lady Raiders were led by Cassey Adams’ 33 kills and 24 digs, Morgan Johnson’s 26 kills and 26 digs, Hannah Graham’s 39 assists, Casey Crump’s 36 assists, Lynsey King’s 42 digs, Shelby McFarland’s 15 kills and Emelee Oliver’s 10 kills.

The Lady Cats — who went 26-16 in 2008 but lost Daily Citizen All-Area Volleyball Player of the Year Emily Broadrick to graduation — are peaking after dropping nine of 11 matches in mid-September. Since then, they’ve won 8 of 14.

“Instead of starting out strong in the beginning of the season like we did last year,” Donahue said, “I wanted to make sure that we peaked at the right time at the end of the year so we could take some teams on like we did today.”

Dalton was led by Kathryn Sigmon’s 36 assists, six aces and five blocks, Emily Harbin’s 17 kills and three blocks and Viviana Fraire’s six kills and three blocks.

Murray County assistant coach Kim Richards was impressed with how her Lady Indians finished their season.

“Honestly, what we did today was what I’ve been trying to get the team to do all year long, and that’s playing with togetherness and a wanting to win,” Richards said. “We played with a lot of enthusiasm and sheer drive. We were making some good plays, but things just didn’t go our way.”