MURFREESBORO – The South Greene volleyball team (15-9) fought hard and battled with a powerhouse in Loretto, but ultimately came up short as South Greene suffered a 3-0 sweep (25-10, 25-17, 25-17) to the Lady Mustangs (50-3) Wednesday evening.
Coming into the contest, coach Stephen Gregg and his ladies knew what they were up against. Yesterday’s opening round victory was Loretto’s 49th win of the season and today marked their 50th. To a lot of people, they are considered the odds-on favorite to win the state championship on Friday.
Even though they knew the task was tall, they still battled and made the Lady Mustangs work hard for their second and third set victories.
“I’m pleased that they didn’t lay down. I’ve brought some teams down here before that just had some quit about them. That’s the thing, our resiliency is what we have to have to win those long points. Keep battling until the end. What happens happens,” Gregg mentioned.
The Lady Rebels will walk into an elimination game on Thursday in the loser’s bracket at 9:30 AM Central Time against Summertown (34-14). “We’ve got to look to tomorrow and tomorrow’s preparation starts now,” Coach Gregg stated.
The first set was all dominance from Loretto. Following a tight score after five serves, the Lady Mustangs opened up an 11-4 lead winning eight of the next ten volleys. Ally Weathers delivered two kills and a block in that span. The Lady Rebels struggled to find any offense in the first set and only compiled four kills. Reagan Arrowood and Addison Compton each had one and Baylee Jennings scored a pair.
“We knew coming in we had a very, very tough opponent. A lot of people’s favorite to win this thing,” Gregg mentioned. “We couldn’t afford to have the start we had in set one. I felt like, execution wise, as the match went on, we started doing the things that we had talked about in our pre-game scouting report.”
They dropped the first set 25-10 and fell behind by as much as eleven points in the second set, 19-8, before mounting a comeback scoring eight of the next nine points to pull within four.
Davanie Tarleton was a huge reason for that and scored four-straight for South Greene with a pair of kills and a pair of blocks. She delivered four kills and three blocks in the set.
“Davanie’s got that ability. She garnered a lot of respect there if you noticed in the third set, they were triple blocking her cause they know she’s our main hitter. We kind of go as Davanie’s going. That just says a lot about her play. A 50-win team is up there triple blocking her,” Gregg expressed.
Trailing 20-16, Loretto came back to score five of the next six to close the set out and win 25-17. Before sweeping South Greene, the Lady Rebels gave them the most competitive set of the match and made them work for every point. There were ten ties and three early lead changes, but South Greene just couldn’t push over the hump and hold a strong lead.
Their largest lead was 7-4 after an ace from Sadie Trammell and a kill from Whitney Reaves. Loretto won four-straight immediately after to regain the lead and never trail again.
A pair of kills from Tarlton and Trammell tied the score at 16-16, but the comeback attempt never came to fruition as the Lady Mustangs closed the door on them and won nine of the last ten to end the match.
“In this sport we’re not the biggest team. We’ve got big hearts and we try hard. But we don’t have as many heavy hitters as teams down here so we have to buy into the defensive passing. I felt like we were slipping on oil there late when we got a couple passes that got us out of system. That’s the thing about this sport, it’s momentum. It could take one play or two plays that could snowball into three or four,” Coach Gregg explained.
Loretto completed their clean sweep to improve to 50-3 and advance to the Class 1A Semifinals. South Greene falls into the loser’s bracket where they will face Summertown on Thursday morning at 9:30 a.m.
Mallory Corbin led both teams with a game-high 13 kills. Ally Weathers delivered nine kills and an ace. Rebecca Heinerman picked up 6 kills and 2 aces. Anna Cheatham added 5 kills.
Tarlton led South Greene with six kills. Baylee Jennings followed behind with three kills. Whitney Reaves and Sadie Trammell each contributed with two each while Reagan Arrowood and Addison Compton had one. Trammell had the only ace for the Lady Rebels.
