Lady Cyclones battle South to end in a 3-2 defeat
Published 1:19 am Saturday, August 31, 2019
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Star Photo/Ivan Sanders Lady Cyclone Mattie Davis prepares to serve the volleyball to the South defense.
BY IVAN SANDERS
STAR SPORTS EDITOR
The volleyball game between Elizabethton and Sullivan South was a match and a tale of two different teams.
The Lady Rebels of South are the measuring stick for teams in Northeast Tennessee as they have been on the TSSAA state tournament radar for several years while Coach Leslee Bradley and the Elizabethton Lady Cyclones have been close to breaking out and into the state tournament the last few years.
On Thursday inside A.L. Treadway Gym, the two teams met for the first time on the court and the result was an epic battle to the very last point as the two teams had to go to a fifth game to determine who would take the early-season showdown.
In the end, the Lady Rebels managed to battle to a win but not before being reminded that the Lady Cyclones are coming hard and fast for them this season.
The first game set the tone for the rest of the match as the Lady Cyclones won 26-24 before the Lady Rebels battled back to even the games at 1-1 in the second game with a 25-21 win.
Elizabethton took advantage of South miscues in the third game and won easily 25-15. South regrouped in the fourth game to take a 25-17 win to force the fifth game with the first one to 15 taking the win.
The Lady Rebels squeaked by with a 15-7 game to win the match.
Seniors Morgan Smith and Hannah Boster had big nights at the net with 17 and 12 kills respectively. Deanna Hull continued to play tough defensively with 26 digs in the match while Brittany Kitchens (19), Smith (18), Whitley Maupin (11) and Josie Lyons (10) also played solidly.
Hannah Boster and Kaitlin Bailey added four blocks.
Bradley had mixed emotions after the match when reviewing the match that had just played out before an energetic crowd.
“I feel good and bad about it,” Bradley said. “I feel like we had them tonight and just didn’t play as hard as we needed to on every point.
“It’s learning how to be consistently strong. You have to give South a whole lot of credit because when things were on the line they refused to die. It became harder to score a point against them.
“We didn’t adjust the tenacity that we needed on our side.”
Bradley admitted it is too early in the season and there is plenty of good volleyball ahead for her team.
“It is super early. I think that we are still learning who we are a little bit. Kaitlin (Bailey) is still new to this sport and I have been waiting for her timing to get better and I saw a glimpse of that tonight,” Bradley added.
“She started swinging and her timing is getting better. To be this close early and know we still have progress to make is a good thing. We have a lot of sicknesses right now and we are not a healthy team right now. We got tired at the end and that hurt us as well.”
The Lady Cyclones boarded the bus on Friday heading to Charleston, South Carolina for a weekend tournament that Bradley hopes will pay big dividends down the road.
“You want to see some different teams and utilize some different players so if we get in trouble later in the season that we have players ready to step in and know what they need to do,” Bradley said.
