The Greeneville volleyball team took care of business on Tuesday evening, taking down Johnson County 3-0 (25-15, 25-14, 25-19) in a District 1-AA sweep.
“We have talked about some improvements that we wanted to make today, but they are focus challenges that they have to perform. Those are things they have to determine whether they met or not. But overall, I’m proud. I felt like we executed better on offense than we have been. I think we gained some confidence after playing some good teams over the weekend,” Greeneville coach Sara Aiken Said.
The Lady Devils started the day with a lopsided 25-15 win in the first set and they limited the Lady Longhorns to only two offensive points in the set.
Errors by Greeneville did allow Johnson County to hang around early, and the first separation came at 10-6 after a powerful kill from the left side by Leah Ford and a block from Destani Bailey in the middle.
Ford added another powerful blow to push the advantage to 13-7. Johnson County did a good job for most of the night of digging Greeneville’s kill attempts, but Ford was the Lady Devil who was consistently able to beat them.
“Leah makes a lot of things happen,” Aiken said, “She has such a high touch point and I don’t’ think defenses expect someone with such a slight build to be so aggressive. Big kills like that can gives a team a lot of momentum. She’s very talented and it’s fun that she is just a freshman. She knows where the seams are, she finds them, and she gets above the block.”
A kill by Kyla Jobe and an ace by Manning Click pushed the Lady Devils’ lead to 17-10.
Johnson County’s Lexi Mullins sent over an ace that made it 17-12, but also scored the Lady Longhorns’ first offensive point.
Greeneville finished out the set with another kill from Ford and a block from Bailey on the way to a 25-15 win.
In the second set Kinley McCaslin dropped in two aces as Greeneville jumped in front 6-1.
The Lady Devils then got kills from Jobe and Ford before Brynlee Jones came up with an ace on the way to a 11-3 lead.
The Lady Devils got kills from Bailey and McCaslin and a block from Shelton, but Johnson County kept pace with a kill and tip from Ella Icenhour as the score moved to 14-7.
A series of good serves from Baylee Ramsey and a kill from Jobe put Greeneville in front 19-9. Jones then added an ace and McCaslin closed the 25-14 win with a kill.
Johnson County did go down easy and took its first lead of the night at 4-3 in the third set when Marley Matheson snuck a tip past the Lady Devils.
The set stayed tight until Ford rattled the defense with a smash from the left side. Shelton followed by scoring on a tip and then Jobe sent over serve that the Lady Longhorns could not return. That gave Greeneville some breathing room at 12-7.
Another kill by Ford and an ace by Alexis Marante put the Lady Devils in front 14-8.
Greeneville’s biggest lead of the set came at 20-11 after an ace by Ford.
Johnson County answered that with a comeback attempt that included a block by Matheson and a tip by Lyric Fritts which closed the gap to 22-18.
Aiken called a timeout to stop the run and out of it Jobe punished a kill from the left side. McCaslin followed with a kill from the back row, and Greeneville’s 25-19 win finished when the Lady Longhorns banged a pass off the ceiling.
“I just told them that they had done these things before. They have scored points in this scenario one hundred different times. I just wanted them to not panic and not play timid. They needed to play aggressive and finish it out,” Aiken said.
