Lady Wolves secure big win for senior night
PEARCY — Lake Hamilton showed up for senior night as the Lady Wolves came out and secured a three-set win against White Hall at Wolf Arena Tuesday.
“We were slow to start, but we got better as we started going,” Lake Hamilton head coach Karen Smith said. “It was senior night, and everybody’s minds are on everything except for the game at that point in time. It just took us a while to get going. They worked together well. That’s something that we’ve worked on constantly — being a complete unit on the floor instead of individual, so I felt like the setters did a good job of mixing up the sets, and the defense did a good job of passing the ball up. We all did really well together.”
The Lady Wolves ( 10- 5, 10-2
5A-South) and the Lady Panthers stayed within a one point margin to start the first set before an attacking error on the visitors side of the court set them back. Junior Audri Winfrey stepped up to the line, putting up two service points for a
9-5 Lake Hamilton lead. White Hall pulled within 12-11, but sophomore Ann Marie Tice served up a pair of aces among her four service points for Lake Hamilton before White Hall Kacie Byrd’s kill ended the run for a 16-12 deficit.
The Lady Wolves pushed out to a 19-14 edge with Winfrey doling out a pair of aces to widen the spread. Senior Alonna Thomas tried to cut the spread, but junior Hayleigh Wyrick set the stage for a kill from sophomore Emalee Worden, and the score hovered around five points before a successful attack from senior Aryn Hughes closed out the set, 25-20.
Heading into the second, both teams refused to fall behind with the score knotted at 7-all. Winfrey took matters into her own hands with White Hall helpless to respond as she went on a seven-point streak that was brought to a close by an attacking error. The Lady Panthers ran out of steam as Lake Hamilton’s defense kept their opponent from making a comeback as they took the set, 25-12.
“We played really, really good until (Winfrey) went to hit,” White Hall head coach Delanie Cooper said. “We played point- for- point until ( Winfrey) went to serve. I wish we could’ve had better service against them. My senior, Alonna Thomas, played lights out tonight, and I feel like Alonna was my star of the day. (Winfey) was hard to cover and her serves were hard to receive.”
“The rest of the team hits pretty good and smart, so it helps take the light off of her,” Smith said of Winfrey. “It lets her come back and remind everybody that she’s still there on the floor. I like it that way.”
Neither team jumped out to a significant lead in the final set before a serving error from White Hall’s Claire Talbot signaled the Lady Panthers’ steady decline. Another mistake from behind the line put another point on the board for the hosts as Winfrey rained down a kill off a Wyrick assist for a 13-10 lead. On the visitor’s next possession, Winfrey continued to showcase the strength of Lake Hamilton’s front line with another kill off an assist from senior Kynzee Dixon.
Maintaining a four-point spread, Winfrey took control at the line with three service points, including an ace, and Wyrick found Winfrey on the outside for the kill to solidify their dominance on the court,
20-13. White Hall couldn’t find the energy to bounce back as Wyrick brought it home with a kill to win the match, 25-16.
Winfey led Lake Hamilton with
11 kills, five digs and five aces. Dixon finished with nine assists, four digs and a block, and Wyrick tallied seven assists, four kills, two digs and a block.
The Lady Wolves play Fountain Lake at home tonight at 5 p.m. in a non-conference matchup as they prepare for the state tournament next week.
“We both needed games with COVID and people canceling and stuff like that,” Smith said. “We go to state next week. Fountain Lake’s coach (Tina Moore) is really good
at showing us our weaknesses when we play, so I’ll let her pick us apart and then we’ll fix the things she picks apart.”
• The Lady Wolves junior varsity squad picked up a win Tuesday against White Hall, sweeping both sets.
The Lady Panthers JV jumped out a 7-3 lead before the hosts overtook them for a slight 12-9 edge en route to a 25-13 win of the first set. Lake Hamilton continued to dominate the floor with a 12-1 lead in the second before the visitors began to get things going for a 20-9 deficit, but couldn’t recover as Lake Hamilton took the set, 25-14. Junior Jadyn Collier led with seven assists, a dig and an ace. Junior Emmaleigh Landrum secured three kills, two assists and two blocks, sophomore Naomi King had two kills, a dig and two aces, and sophomore Riley Kilby finished the night with eight digs.