The Greeneville volleyball team earned its first win of the year on Thursday night and in the process started District 1-AA play with a win, sweeping Unicoi County 3-0 (25-13, 25-13, 25-15).
“I’m really proud of our team. We set goals for all three sets, and we met them. We don’t always do that, but they worked hard today” Greeneville coach Sara Aiken said. “I’m really excited for the girls to get that first win. They have had wins that did not show up in the record in our first three games. But I could not be more excited for this team, and I hope we can carry this into the weekend when we go to Knoxville for a tournament.”
Every player on the roster got in on the action on Thursday, and Aiken hopeful that getting everyone a taste of varsity action in the first week of the season will prove helpful as the season progresses.
“Everybody got to touch the ball tonight, which is always a good night,” Aiken said. “Anytime you can develop your program it’s great. Its great to be able to put in some pieces that aren’t always in there and see that they can keep rolling.”
The Lady Blue Devils hung around early in the first set and were within one point at 8-7 before Trudi Aiken got Greeneville going by scoring on a tip. Leah Ford and Destani Bailey came up with consecutive kills to push the lead to 15-11.
Another kill from the middle by Bailey and a pair of errors by Unicoi moved the Lady Greene Devils advantage to 18-11.
Greeneville scored the final six points of the 25-13 win started by Kyla Jobe smashing a kill down the line from the left side. Kills from Emma Shelton, Emma Light and Jobe followed to end the set with emphasis.
The second set started with Unicoi taking advantage of some Greeneville’s mistakes for a quick 4-2 lead.
Shelton tied things at 4-4 on a play in which she first stuffed a Lady Blue Devils’ kill attempt, and then scored on a first-hit tip. On the next play Jobe walloped a kill at Unicoi’s Kaley Toney that knocked the defender to the ground.
Manning Click followed with a pair of aces as Greeneville took a 7-4 lead.
Jobe scored a push to the back line, a tip, and a kill as the lead grew to 12-6. Over the second half of the set Bailey added two more kills while Shelton nailed a kill and beat the defense with a tip on the way to a 25-13 win.
Bailey and Shelton played a huge role in the middle of the net for Greeneville on Friday, and Aiken credits a lot of that to the passing of the Lady Devils’ back line, particularly Click.
“Those middle hits are really hard to defend,” Aiken said. “The reason we were able to get those is because we had good ball control behind them. When you get the ball to setter where they feel confident setting, that middle is a hard place to defend. That sets us up for success and then the hitters executed. That was really fun to watch.”
Greeneville scored the first five points of the third set with Trudi Aiken serving, but after a big block by Noell Farnor Janiela Sotto stepped up to the service line and brought Unicoi back to within two at 8-6.
Farnor came up with a kill to tie the set at 10-10 and the Lady Blue Devils took the lead at 11-10 on Greeneville error.
Greeneville got going again with a kill from the middle by Shelton before Jobe sent over seven good serves. In that stretch Ford put down a trio of kills and Aiken came up with a block that fired up the Lady Devils’ bench.
“I think we had one of those little valleys of errors. I didn’t want to call a timeout because I wanted them to fix it. They just needed to get back to fundamental volleyball and that got us going again,” coach Aiken said.
The Lady Devils spread the ball around up to finish out the night as Ford, Light, Jobe, Bailey and Ahonesti Homes all had kills over the final seven points.
