Sixth time’s a charm Lafayette celebrates winning region volleyball title
For the past six years that Chris Logan has been the head coach of the Lafayette Lady Ramblers, his team has gotten a little closer to a region title each and every year.
In 2014, his first year at the helm, Lafayette finished the region tournament in sixth place and followed up with a fifthplace finish the next year.
The 2016 season saw Lafayette earn a spot at state as a No. 4 seed, while an upset loss in the 2017 region tournament would relegate them to the No. 3 seed. Last year, the Lady Ramblers made it to the championship match, only to lose to Northwest Whitfield and finish second.
But as it turned out, the sixth time turned out to be the charm as Lafayette overcame a first-set loss to Heritage on Saturday to make the finals before battling back from a set down against the top-seeded Lady Bruins to win three in a row and finally hoist that long-awaited 6-AAAA championship trophy.
“We just had to keep going,” said an emotional Logan afterward. “Volleyball is a mental game. At the beginning of the year, I don’t know if we could have done what we did today. The last couple weeks, the Heritage game here, the Gordon Lee game and then the other game against Heritage earlier today, that prepared us for that final match today. In all those matches, we kind of let up for a minute at times, but we were able to step on the gas when we needed to.”
After beating fifth-seeded Gilmer in the opening round at home on Thursday, secondseeded Lafayette arrived at Heritage High School on Saturday and was immediately tested by the fourth-seeded Lady Generals, who moved on in the winner’s bracket after beating thirdseeded Ridgeland on the road in Thursday’s opening round.
Heritage would win the opening set over the Lady Ramblers, 25-22, but Lafayette would turn the tables in the second set with a 25-22 victory of their own before winning the tie-breaking third set, 15-7.
That victory put Lafayette into the finals against No. 8-ranked Northwest, who had gotten into the championship match with a win over Southeast on Thursday. The Lady Bruins would put the Lady Ramblers in a quick 0-1 hole with a 25-19 victory in the first set.
But the Orange-and-black refused to stay down and came storming out of the gates in the second set, winning 25-15 to even up the best-of-five match. A 2522 victory in the third set would follow and the Lady Ramblers would make sure that would be no fifth-set drama as they took care of business with a 25-18