Volleyball team suffers pair of district losses
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Warren County took on Siegel and Cookeville in a tri-match with the Lady Pioneers falling to the Lady Stars 14-25, 14-25, 25-22, 17-25. In the last match of the day, Cookeville downed WCHS 25-23, 25-21 and 25-11.
In its first game, Warren County had trouble passing the ball off the serve. Several unforced errors gave Siegel the early lead and the 11-point win.
In the second game against Siegel Warren County built a 5-1 lead, but the Lady Stars tied the game at 5-5 and took the lead at 7-5 after running seven serves through the Lady Pioneers’ receiving rotation. Warren County appeared to be out of sync on offense and had trouble keeping their serves in as good passing and solid net play by Siegel produced the win.
In the third game the Lady Pioneers looked like a different team. Strong net play by MaKenna Rhea, Karen Marlowe and Amanda Goad helped build a 13-6 lead for the Lady Pioneers.
The Lady Stars put a couple of solid rallies together and pulled within three points at 16-13. Candace Stubblefield served six straight points for the Lady Pioneers and along with solid passing by Bethany King put Warren County on top 22-14. The Lady Stars fought their way back and pulled within one at 23-22. Warren County held its ground and finished out the game for the 25-22 win.
Siegel jumped out to a 6-1 lead in the fourth game. Warren County’s backcourt did a good job of passing, which provided the Lady Pioneers’ hitters the opportunity to get Warren County back in the game down 16-11, but Siegel started to pull away as the ball found the open floor. Siegel took the final game to win the best three-out-of -five match.
Cookeville and Warren County looked to be evenly matched but the Lady Pioneers had play without outside hitter Rhea due to a knee injury. The teams exchanged serve eight times as the game was tied at 9-9. Lady Pioneer setter Stubblefield went to her senior teammate, Goad, who found the open floor with three hard spikes. Kara Youngblood was also the recipient of several sets and Warren County and Cookeville were still tied at 20-20.
Stubblefield gave Warren County the lead with an ace at 23-22, but two missed passes by the Lady Pioneers gave Cookeville the win.
The next two games would be almost identical. In the second game both teams would fine themselves tied once again at 20-20. Cookeville had only one put-away over the next five points, but costly errors by the Lady Pioneers let the second game slip away to Cookeville. Cookeville opened up a five-point lead in the third game at 12-7. Up 14-9 Cookeville scored 10 straight points of the serve. Cookeville put the game away after building such a big lead 25-11.
“We should have won both of these matches,” said WCHS coach Franklin Fisher. “The first game against Siegel, we just didn’t have our minds in the right place. We got that one bad game out of our system and then settled down. In both matches we had things going our way but for some reason we stopped thinking and made mistakes at crucial points.
“We served well, and actually played very well at times. We were short handed tonight but freshman Megan Hobbs stepped in and played well in the backcourt. King did a good job tonight and has improved with more playing time. We had only two seniors on the floor tonight in Goad and Stubblefield, and they played really hard. It’s still early in the season and this team is headed in the right direction.”