Gallery by Tina Laney
Greenbrier East and Shady Spring volleyball have been on a postseason collision course all season.
Round one between the No. 4-ranked Spartans and the No. 3-ranked Tigers will occur Tuesday night inside Dave Wills gym in the Class AAA Region 3, Section 2 semifinals.
Greenbrier East eased through the opening round Monday with a 3-0 (25-12, 25-10, 25-15) win over Independence, while Shady Spring handled Princeton (25-14, 25-16, 25-9) in three sets as well.
“We are looking forward to it,” Greenbrier East head coach Matt Sauvage said. “We have battled hard with them this year. Even the matches they beat us it was tough. A couple of points here and there changes everything. We are looking forward to it and I know Shady is looking forward to it as well. It should be a fun match.”
The key for the Spartans in the opening match was consistent play on both levels which never gave the Patriots room to breath.
“They are playing well right now. It is the time of year that you want to be playing well,” Sauvage said. ‘We weren’t playing our best for a stretch there in October and I was hoping we hadn’t peaked too early. The last couple of weeks they have really picked it back up and it has been nice.”
Seniors Alexis Stack and Mollie Pack controlled the net for East along with some solid play from Regan Rink. Mackenna McClure set the table for the big hitters and libero Hailey Irvin controlled the back row.
“That’s the whole key. If you only have two hitters, you are going to be in trouble. As long as we can spread the ball around, and it doesn’t have to be a lot, then they can’t key on certain things,” Sauvage said. “That helps Mollie and Lex out a lot. We put a lot on pressure on them on the outside to perform for us. When you get a couple of others performing, it really helps us.”
Although Shady Spring started a little slow in the first set, when the Tigers started rolling, they were unstoppable.
With the opening set tied 9-9, Shady ran off five straight points to separate the game. A kill and a block from Alivia Stover, along with a kill and an ace from Allie Fragile keyed the run.
A blast from Rachel Mann pushed the lead to eight later in the set before an ace from Stover followed by a kill from Reagan Mann sealed the 25-14 win.
“All around I thought we played well. We played Saturday and we played well against some big teams, but our errors were mental mistakes,” Shady Spring head coach Brantlea Wood said. “We talked about coming in more focused and playing our game, not other people’s game.”
Set two started with Stover flushing an over pass from Princeton and the home team never trailed the rest of the set. An ace from Baylee Richmond gave Shady its biggest lead at 20-9 en route to the 25-16 win.
A block from Princeton senior Carley Hurt gave Princeton it’s only lead of the night before Shady Spring took command with a 20-4 run.
“I think everybody played really well and everybody was doing their job. That is a big help too,” Wood said.
The winner between Shady Spring and Greenbrier East advances to the sectional championship round, while the loser will face the winner of Independence and Princeton in an elimination match.
Princeton advanced to meet Shady Spring with a 3-1 (20-25, 25-13, 25-21, 25-16) win over PikeView earlier in the night.
Independence eliminated the Panthers 3-0 (25-14, 25-18, 25-16) to set up the match-up with Princeton.
“They were nervous. Matt always gets his girls ready for us. It was the first time in sectional play for a lot of our girls,” Independence head coach Ron Moreland said. “There were some good things we battled through and we will make adjustments. We have to hopefully take care of Princeton first tomorrow.”
Both matches will start at 6 p.m. with the second match of the night set for 30 minutes after the openers.
