VOLLEYBALL RECAP: Catholic fights back to beat Trinity; MA shuts out ACA
Trinity’s KK Keller volleys past Catholic’s Zaria Rudolph in a match on Thursday at Trinity Presbyterian. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
Catholic and Trinity may both be in a rebuilding phase this year, but that didn’t keep Thursday’s match at Captain Jack Court from resembling one of those classic five-set battles the two teams are famous for playing.
“It was good volleyball,” Trinity coach Sarah Dubberly said. “I knew it would be. They’re a great team and my team is capable.”
Trinity roared back from a first-set defeat to win the second and third sets, only to have Catholic take charge in the fourth set to force a fifth game. Catholic rallied from an early deficit with seven consecutive points, Trinity scored the next three and the Knights added the final two for a 16-14 win to take the third and decisive set.
The win was huge for Catholic, which improved to 6-1 in area play and can clinch home-court advantage for the upcoming area tournament with a win at home against Marbury on Tuesday.
“To potentially be the number one (seed) in the area, this was really big,” Catholic coach Jenn Denham said. “If we had dropped this one, it could potentially put Trinity, St. James and us in a three-way tie. We wanted to host area. We didn’t host area last year and we had that as a focus. We knew that we needed to take care of things here versus letting everybody else dictate what happens.”
Trinity fell to 4-2 in area platy with matches remaining against Holtville on Tuesday and St, James on Oct. 2. St. James is 5-2 with the Oct. 2 match remaining against Trinity. Trinity and St. James will face each other again in the opening round of the area tournament, while Catholic will play the Holtville-Marbury winner.
For a few moments, it looked as if Catholic would take control of the area race by defeating the Wildcats 25-23 in the first set. But Trinity had closed the gap late in the first set and won the next two sets 25-20 and 25-22 to swing the momentum.
“I feel like in the first set we came out a little sluggish,” Dubberly said. “Toward the end of the first set, we gained some momentum but came up short by two points. We took them to the locker room and just addressed the things we had worked on specifically for tonight. We focused on that in set two and it showed.”
Catholic came back with perhaps its best showing in the fourth set, winning 25-19.
“I was really proud of them,” Denham said. “They showed a ton of grit. The first set, we were kind of cruising. The second set, our serve-receive is not there at all. We probably gave up 13-15 balls out of serve-receive where we couldn’t run anything because we couldn’t start with a great pass. Their serves were really, really aggressive.
“I was proud we were able to make that adjustment and overcome it.”
In the fifth set, Trinity took an early 9-6 lead and extended it to 11-7 before the Knights scored the next seven points to take a 14-11 lead. Play was halted for discussions with both coaches after the Wildcats were initially awarded a point for a 12-9 lead, then it was switched to Catholic to make it 11-10.
“There was a call that didn’t go our way and a discrepancy in the score,” Dubberly noted. “What I constantly preach to the girls is you’ve got to control what you can control. I asked, our captain asked, we checked the books. At this point, we’ve checked everything. We’ve got to move on to the next point because that’s outside of our control.”
After falling behind 14-11, the Wildcats scored the next three points to even the score before Catholic scored twice to secure the victory.
“You’ve had a couple of errors and it’s easy to get in your head,” Denham said. “We’ve really focused on resetting, whether you made one mistake, you made two mistakes, you let that go and move on. I was really proud of them for finding that mental toughness and facing some adversity.”
For the Wildcats, libero Lilly Smith had 31 digs and two aces, setter Ellie Causey had 42 assists, 14 digs and an ace, outside hitter Lizzie Causey had 10 kills, 25 digs and five aces, middle blocker Cate Chapman had eight kills and four aces and outside hitter Micaiah Shelton had 15 kills, seven digs and four blocks.
For the Knights, Kierstyn Green had 22 kills and 31 digs, Joi McGuire had 16 kills, two aces, 36 digs and three blocks, Lucy Logsdon had 10 kills, two blocks, nine digs, three aces and 32 assists, Ava Bierly had 39 digs, and Zaria Rudolph had nine kills, 10 digs, six blocks and 33 assists.
Montgomery Academy 3, Alabama Christian 0
Montgomery Academy won its fifth consecutive match on Tuesday, sweeping Alabama Christian in the ACA gym on Tuesday night.
Morgan Springer led Montgomery Academy with 15 kills, three digs, a block and an ace. Kaci Armistead had 11 digs and an ace, Lizzie Campbell had three digs and five aces, E.G. Hines had 11 digs, an ace and six kills, Caroline Wood had six kills and a dig, Bennett Britt had six kills and two digs and Rehmat Sidhu had 33 assists along with five digs.
Prattville Christian 3, Tallassee 0
TALLASSEE --The Panthers defeated Tallassee 25-13, 25-10 and 25-11 on Tuesday in the Tallassee gym to improve to 5-0 in 4A Area 5 play.
For the Panthers, Baylee Rogers had 22 assists, four kills, a pair of aces and six digs, Leah Cate Wilson had five kills, a dig and a block, Maren Diefenderfer had four kills, six aces and a block and Anniston Robison had four kills, four aces and a dig.
Olivia Rossi had three kills and two digs, Copeland Miller had three kills and a dig, Elle Maddox had two kills, Marion Lewis had a kill, Christiana Franklin had a pair of blocks, Morgan Fowler had an assist, two aces and seven digs, Aiden Williams had two aces and a dig, Kenadie Minor had a pair of aces and Kandice Crosby had a pair of aces.
St. James 3, Holtville 0
HOLTVILLE -- The Trojans swept Monday’s match at Holtville, winning all three sets to improve to 4-2 in 5A Area 6 play in the Bulldog gym.
For the Trojans, KK Corley had 23 kills and 10 digs, Sydney Johnston had 21 digs and four assists, Elliette Barton had 18 assists, 10 digs and a pair of aces, Kaitlin Mitchell had seven kills and Jordyn McRae had six kills and a block.