Ringgold spikers looking to ace chemistry this fall
After claiming Region 6-AAA championships in 2017, 2018 and 2019, Ringgold came up short in a bid for a fourth consecutive region title last season, but still made it to the state tournament where they fell to White County in the first round.
If they are get back to the postseason again in 2021, the Lady Tigers will have to replace four seniors from last year’s squad, three of whom were All-Region performers.
However, head coach Ashley
Boren believes in her team. Now in her eighth season, Boren said that this year’s team has plenty of potential.
“I think we’re looking good,” she said just a few days before this Tuesday’s seasonopening tri-match against county rivals LFO and Heritage. “We played a few other teams at Heritage in a play day the other day and we did fairly well. We’ve made few rotation changes since then.
“We have a good mix with five returning players for varsity and five new girls, two of which are underclassmen and five are juniors with three seniors. We have some new girls in the rotations, so we definitely need to work on our positioning, our rotations and just getting everybody comfortable working with each other on the floor.”
This year’s senior class includes the versatile Allison Wolfe-Driver, who had 55 kills, 58 assists and 58 digs last season. She will be at an outside spot, but can play on the right side or even on the back row, if needed. Defensive specialist Meredith Fowler (172 digs, 20 aces in 2020) will take over the libero spot, while middle hitter Destiny
Cavin (81 kills, 48 blocks) is also talented enough to play a few points on the back row.
Junior setter Alayna Custer had 325 assists, 193 digs and 28 aces in her first year at Ringgold to pick up an AllRegion honorable mention nod, while the rest of the junior class will be new to the varsity roster.
Defensive specialist Erin Harvey and middle hitter Genna Pease are moving up from the junior varsity, as is utility player Halia Dean, who can play either on the
and a Catoosa-Walker Dream Team selection last year after racking up 118 kills and 82 blocks. O’Neal is coming off a nice club ball season and even bigger numbers
are expected this fall. The final returning player for the Red-and-White is back row standout Madison Gilliland, who recorded 131 digs to go with 50 kills and 29 aces as a sophomore. Front row hitter Kylie Bell will round out the junior contingent.
The rest of the varsity roster will consist of Lily Qualls, who
is penciled in as the starting setter, along with front row hitters Ziara Thompson and Zoey Gray-Martin, who are all sophomores.
“I’ve got a lot of talent coming up, so I think we’ll do fine,” said Norwood, who will be helped on the bench by veteran assistant Erica Foster, along with Brandi Womack.
“We might start off a little rocky, but I think by the end of the season we’ll be good.”
Norwood added that with a taller team, overall, she believes the Lady Warriors’ main strength will lie on offense and that finding team chemistry among younger players will be a big key to their success.
“The key is just for us to mesh together as a team because, like I said, we only have four of them that are returning,” she explained. “The goals are to win the region title and get back to the state playoffs. We came up a little short of doing that last year, so we’re hoping to do better this year.”