Oakwood earns home sweep
With her team up one set, but in danger of seeing visiting Rhea County Academy tie things up in the second set, Oakwood Christian Academy volleyball coach Bailey Teem called time-out and gave her team a piece of advice - “just have fun”.
A simple strategy and, as it turned out, a very effective one.
Down 20-19, the Lady Eagles would win six of the next eight points to take the set, and then blew away the Lady Warriors in the third to complete the 25-18, 25-22, 25-7 sweep in Chickamauga on Tuesday night.
“When we lose, we typically beat ourselves, and that’s what we were doing in that (second) set,” Teem said. “But our motto this year is to give 100 percent, do our best and just to have fun and that’s exactly what we did.”
Leading 1-0 after a solid first set, Oakwood jumped out to a 9-2 lead in the second set on strength of six aces, including four in a row by Mary Ownby.
However, numerous errors, both hitting and serving, would begin to plague the Lady Eagles over the next few minutes, which allowed the Lady Warriors to get back in the match. They tied things up at 11 and the score would be tied eight more times before the guests from Dayton, Tenn. took a one-point lead on an OCA hitting error, forcing Teem to call time-out to regroup.
But coming out of the break, freshman Lexie Asher threw down a big kill to tie it up at 20 and send Ownby back to serve. Ownby came through with three more straight aces to regain control for her team and one more kill by Asher would give the Lady Eagles a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five match.
Oakwood spotted RCA the first two points of set three, but the Navy-and-Gold charged back to forge a 10-6 lead on a kill by Ownby, which put Annika Green at the line.
Mixing up a variety of long and short serves to keep RCA off-balance, Green would click off 14 consecutive points with seven going for aces. Asher and Tori Hall had two kills each in the run that finally ended at 23-6, but two more kills by Kylie Hall moments later would finally put the match to bed.
Ownby finished with nine aces for the match, while Green had seven aces, three kills and a block. Asher had a
team-high six kills to go with two aces. Tori Hall finished with four kills and three aces, Kylie Hall added four kills
and two aces, while Kaylee McSpadden chipped in with a kill, an ace and several digs.
“We’ve worked all year on basic skills, passing, setting and hitting, and the people in the stands have probably heard talk
about them a thousand times,” Teem added. “But the girls have worked on those fundamentals and because of that, they’re playing more consistent and winning matches.”
Oakwood, now 6-1 in regular season, non-
tournament matches this season, was slated to play Monday night at Cleveland (Tenn.) Christian School in an SCAA league match. However, due to newspaper deadlines, scores and details were not available as of press
time.
The Lady Eagles were slated to make a return trip to Dayton to face RCA on Tuesday, starting at 5 p.m., and they will travel to Knoxville on Thursday for a 5 p.m. matches at Knoxville Christian.