Volleyball Roundup: Lady Tigers split county court clash
The Ringgold Lady Tigers hosted LFO and Heritage for an allCatoosa County tri-match last Tuesday night to ring in the 2021 volleyball season.
It was the Lady Generals getting the better end of the deal as they posted a sweep, 25-16 and 25-23 over LFO, and 25-13 and 25-9 over Ringgold. In the other match of the evening, Ringgold salvaged a split of the night with a 25-10, 25-20 win over their longtime rivals from Fort Oglethorpe.
Allison Wolfe-Driver collected five kills and one dig against LFO, while Cady Helton, Brooke Baldwin and Destiny Cavin all had two kills each. Helton added seven digs, Baldwin picked up three assists, three digs and a block, while Cavin also recorded five digs and three blocks.
Alayna Custer collected 11 digs, nine assists, three aces and a kill and Meredith Fowler had eight digs to go with a kill and an ace. Also getting on the stat sheet was Erin Harvey (two aces, two digs) and Genna Pease (one ace, one kill).
Fowler also had eight digs against Heritage. Custer picked up five assists and one dig, and Cavin added two kills, two digs and a block.
Other contributors included Helton (three digs, two kills, one ace), Harvey (two digs), Baldwin (one kill, one assist, one dig), Wolfe-Driver (one kill, one dig) and Pease (one kill, one dig).
The Lady Tigers dropped to 1-2 overall on the season with a home loss to Dalton this past Thursday in a best-of-five match. Ringgold split the first two sets, losing 2520 and winning 25-23, before narrow losses (25-16, 26-24) in the final two sets.
Cavin and Helton led the Lady Tigers with six kills each on the night. Cavin added 11 digs, two aces and eight big blocks with Helton recording three aces and 17 digs. Wolfe-Driver came up with three kills, five digs and two blocks, while Custer dished out 12 assists to go with 17 digs and a pair of blocks.
Other top performers included Harvey (eight digs), Baldwin (two kills, four assists, nine digs), Pease (two kills, one block, one assist, one dig), Fowler (one kill, 10 digs) and Alexis Brackett (one block, one dig).
LFO bounces back
The LFO volleyball team shook off a pair of losses to county rivals Heritage and Ringgold last Tuesday to earn a road sweep at Gordon Central on Thursday.
Heritage defeated the Lady Warriors, 25-16, 25-23, while Ringgold picked up a 25-10, 25-20 win. Individual statistics for LFO were not available as of press time.
In Calhoun, the Lady Warriors opened the evening by drubbing the hosts, 25-11, 25-14, before a 25-21, 28-26 win over Coahulla Creek in a non-region match.
Lily Qualls had 16 total assists, 12 digs and eight aces on the night. Sydney O’Neal paced the offense with 10 kills, while picking up five blocks, a pair of aces and 25 digs — 21 coming in the win over the Lady Colts. Kylie Bell added six kills on the night and recorded seven aces — six versus Central — to go with one block and one dig.
Other contributors included Taliyah Holland (five kills, three aces, 15 digs), Madison Dorsey (four kills, two aces, 20 digs), Zoey Gray-Martin (five kills, three aces, two digs) and Chloe Reile (one kill, four digs).
Then on Saturday, at home for the first time this season, LFO played three close contests against Silverdale Baptist of Chattanooga, Dade County, and Christian Heritage out of Dalton.
All three match were nail-biters, but unfortunately for the Red-and-White, they came up on short end of all three. Silverdale handed them a 25-15, 22-25, 1511 loss, Dade County slipped past them, 26-24, 27-25, and Christian Heritage rallied for a 22-25, 2523, 15-8 victory, dropping LFO to 2-5 overall on the year.
Once again, individual statistics were unavailable as of press time.
Ridgeland doubles up
Opening its season on the road in Chatsworth, the Lady Panthers raised the curtain on the 2021 campaign by sweeping Coosa and North Murray.
Ridgeland defeated Coosa, 2519, 25-15, behind nine kills from Natalee McClain and two each by Asia Silmon, CeCe Davenport and Koda O’Dell. The Lady Panthers needed three sets to get past the Lady Mountaineers, 22-25, 25-9, 15-10. McClain had 11 kills and six aces, followed by Silmon with seven kills and O’Dell with four.