Gentry Inspirational During Messy Tourney

HUNTSVILLE — Underdog Gentry’s inspired play became one of the bright spots while things were messy during the 4A-1 District volleyball tournament hosted by Huntsville last week.

Unlike Gentry, which hosted the District 4A-1 baseball and softball tournaments last spring, Huntsville declined to make the traditional presentation of conference championship plaques to top seeds, Farmington and Berryville, depriving those teams of photo opportunities to celebrate their regular season achievements.

Last May Gentry softball coach Paul Ernest took hosting seriously and rolled out the hospitality wagon presenting roses to players from participating teams.

Officiating during District 4A-1 volleyball was inconsistent with a high volume of calls reversed and points changed on the scoreboard. Some points were over-ruled a second time. Many of these occurrences appeared to be generated by complaints from coaches or vocal arguments by fans.

Late on the first day of the tournament on Monday, Oct. 21, Shiloh Christian coach Nathan Bodenstein argued that he didn’t want to play back-to-back matches on Tuesday, Oct. 22 and convinced the 4A-1 to rearange Tuesday’s schedule in his favor.

The changes initiated by Bodenstein had a quarterfinal match between Pea Ridge and Harrison moved up from a scheduled 7 p.m. start to 5:30 p.m. while Shiloh Christian, if it survived a 4 p.m. match against Gravette, wouldn’t have to play again until 7 p.m. against No. 1 seed Farmington.

Farmington, which had a bye into the semifinals, by virtue of its 12-0 league-leading record in the regular season, was supposed to play an early match Tuesday, one of the rewards for winning a conference championship. The Lady Cardinals, who had never previously won a district volleyball conference championship, were upstaged by Shiloh Christian in the semifinals.

In the midst of this whirlwind of confusion, Gentry coach Erica Jones was hoping her girls (5-151) would peak at the right time coming into the district tournament.

“We’ve got a lot of good things going on. We just need to put all the pieces together,” Jones said. “They’re learning from each game. They’re improving with each game. We just got to get it all together at the right time.”

Gentry arrived with nothing to lose, ranked No. 5 in the West division, and promptly defeated No. 4 East Huntsville (21-25, 25-12, 25-15, 23-25, 15-9) as the tournament opened Monday, Oct. 21 at 4 p.m. in the Eagle gym at Huntsville.

In contrast to Bodenstein and Shiloh Christian, Jones and the Lady Pioneers made no complaints about playing back-to-back matches and came after their Benton County rival, No. 3 West Gravette, in the next scheduled match of the tournament also on Monday, Oct. 21.

Gravette won the first set, 25-22; and held off the fiesty Lady Pioneers in the second set, 27-25.

With their season on the line, Gentry played to win taking an early 4-1 lead in the third set. Gravette surged back with a 16-5 run to go in front, 17-6.

Gentry capitalized on Lady Lion hitting errors to answer with a 7-1 run closing to within, 18-13.

Gentry got an ace off the net by Falyn Cordeiro and Carissa Goessens’ kill to pull within 21-17. Gravette set up its offense with Madison Mcdaniel (dig), Alexia

Heaton (set) and Payton Hammers (kill) notching a point for a 22-17 margin.

Gentry tied the game at 23-all using Lily Lor’s ace followed by Madison Boyd’s push over the net for a kill.

There were two more ties before the Lady Lions arrived at match-point leading 26-25 when Gentry couldn’t get the ball over. Despite a pair of desperation saves by the Lady Pioneers on all-out hustle Gravette won 27-25 on a Gentry hitting error.

The win advanced Gravette into a Tuesday, Oct. 22 quarterfinal match against Shiloh Christian while Gentry was eliminated from the tournament.