Greeneville’s fourth-seeded Lady Devils opened the District 1-2A volleyball tournament at Chuckey Doak with a three-set sweep of fifth-seeded Johnson County, 25-9, 25-16, and 25-12.
Play started fast for the Lady Devils in the opening set as they raced out to an 11-0 lead. Junior Allison Hayes gave the Longhorn defenders serves that were sometimes difficult to handle and, at other times, forced them into defensive miscues.
“I was just seeing some open spots on the court,” said Hayes. “I knew that if I wanted to help my team, I would have to focus in on my serving because we worked on it in practice. I felt like I needed to lock in and serve to what was open.”
After Johnson County was finally able to get on the board, the Lady Devils went on another run that pushed the lead to 20-2, highlighted by three kills from Natalie Knight. Greeneville eventually closed out the set, 25-9.
Coach Sara Aiken liked the fast start from her Lady Devils but expressed a glimmer of concern as they worked through the second set, which turned into more of a back-and-forth affair.
“We came out with good intentions, and that fast start was directly related to Allison’s run of serves and their intentionality,” said Aiken. “I’m not going to say that I was pleased with the entire game’s intentionality, but we were able to withstand and survive.”
Set two was tied five times before the Lady Devils pulled in front, 12-7. The Lady Longhorns would not go away quietly, reeling off four straight points to pull within one at 12-11.
Greeneville then closed out the set on a 13-5 run to claim the 25-16 victory and take a 2-0 advantage.
The Lady Devils rekindled the intentionality they displayed at the beginning of the match as the third set began, jumping out to a 5-0 advantage. Johnson County stormed back to cut the deficit to 5-3, only to see an ace from Katie Johnson followed by a block from Gabby Atchison push the lead back to 8-4.
Aiken was glad to see her team respond the way it did.
“In order to come out on top, you have to push through the chunky, clunky moments of the game,” said Aiken. “It’s not like we haven’t been in those moments before, and we were able to pull from that and show we could recover.”
The two teams continued to battle, with the set eventually deadlocked at 10-10. Greeneville then turned to its power game behind Johnson, Knight, and Riley Ireland, who each came up with powerful kills to help put the set away, 25-12, and complete the sweep.
“Katie Johnson has a super-fast arm swing, Natalie Knight has a very heavy hand, and all of our front-row attackers gave us a big blocking presence, helping to give us a good availability to run our offense,” said Aiken.
With the win, Greeneville advances to the double-elimination portion of the tournament, where it will face top-seeded Sullivan East at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.
“We want to serve tough, come in hungry like we started today, and extend that throughout each and every touch that we have,” said Aiken. “We are very excited to get to play Sullivan East tomorrow. The competition in this district has just risen the last four or five years, and that’s what makes volleyball super exciting.”
