Grems win battle of elite

COLE CAMP — The second and eighth-ranked teams in Class 1 squared off Saturday night in the championship match of the Kaysinger Conference volleyball tournament.

No. 2 Sacred Heart, the tournament’s top seed and defending  champion,  defeated No. 8 Northwest, 25-19, 15-23, 25-11 Saturday night to win the tournament.

“If you can win the conference tournament, you know you have a solid team,” Sacred Heart coach David Fall said. “Year in and year out, there’s going to be great teams in this conference and this year is no different.”

The Gremlins were a team of runs Saturday night, as they put together two impressive stretches in the first and third games to give them the tournament win.

Northwest won the first point of the match but Sacred Heart went on a tear, winning the next eight points to build an early lead.

The Gremlins closed the match out with an even more impressive 16-2 run that put them ahead easily in the third game.

“I like to start off with leads and tonight we had the big runs and our girls didn’t relax,” said Fall.

Paige Shipley had a team-high 20 kills and added four blocks to close out the hard-fought victory.

“Paige had a great night hitting and she had some key blocks,” Fall said. “She covers such a large area and that’s important for our team to win.”

The Gremlins came out strong the first game and never held a deficit after Northwest scored the first point. They cruised to a one-game lead, but Northwest rebounded behind its defense and servers in the second game.

“They played great defensively and it was a great match,” Fall said. “They served really aggressively and we got aced nine times, which just shouldn’t happen. We played well besides serve-receiving in which we just made too many errors but you have to give credit to their team.”

Northwest and Sacred Heart traded points in the second game, but the Gremlins couldn’t put the Lady Mustangs away as Northwest closed out the game on a 6-3 run to extend the match.

In the third game, Sacred Heart never relinquished the lead behind great efforts from Laura McMullin and Courtney Curtiss.

McMullin led the team with five blocks and nine digs and added an impressive 17 blocks.

Curtiss had a team-high 26 assists to go along with her three service aces.

“Courtney did a great job setting and had to work extra hard tonight against their aggressive serve,”  Fall said.

Meredith Norfleet led the Mustangs with 14 kills and contributed three service aces and five digs.

Mariah Wiskur led Northwest with 12 digs and five service aces, and Whitney Brown had a team-high 19 assists.


THIRD PLACE

Cole Camp 2, Green Ridge 0

Cole Camp settled for third place with a 25-22, 25-20 victory over Green Ridge.

Erin Rice paced the Bluebirds with 10 kills. Ashley Meyer had 19 assists and six service points.

Caitlyn Metzner had seven digs, and Emily Schlesselman had five stuff-blocks for Cole Camp, which improved to 12-5-5.

No Green Ridge statistics were reported.

CONSOLATION MATCH

Lincoln 2, Stover 1

The Lincoln Lady Cardinals fought off Stover 25-27, 25-19, 25-23, to win the fifth-place trophy.

Audra Blackburn paced Lincoln with 15 digs. Trisha Cook had nine kills.

Alex Cooke had nine kills, six blocks and 11 points for Lincoln. Shyanne Swearngin added 14 assists.

No Stover statistics were reported.