Lady Raiders Now 26-6 Following Sweep Of St. Mary's
The winning continues for the Baylor School volleyball team.
The Lady Red Raiders have advanced to the TSSAA state tournament for 16 times in the 17 years that Sarah Lail has been their head coach and they will do so again next week after eliminating St. Mary's Episcopal School on Saturday morning at Baylor.
Baylor is now 26-6 following Saturday's win, which came in straight sets by scores of 25-16, 25-21 and 25-16. St. Mary's ends its season at 17-10.
There is nobody that gets any more excited or proud when the Baylor girls do well than Lail. As you might expect, she was all smiles when Fergie Hammel recorded her 13th and final kill to help her team advance.
"Thank goodness," Lail began after the final point had been scored.
"I'm just so proud and excited for these young ladies as we just perservered today, but that's what we've been doing all season. We trailed for most of the second set, but didn't get too down. I knew we had it when Rylee Jasper came in and gave us the lead in the third set. Her job is to serve as that's her role, but we've been focused all week on what we needed to do to win.
"We've had four days to get ready. One of my favorite parts of this job is being able to scout the other team and prepare a game plan. We knew that Kamryn Keith was going to get her points and she was overpowering at times, but I thought we did a nice job keeping the ball away from her," Lail continued.
Sydney Watson just finished her first year as the head coach of the Turkeys after spending three years as an assistant. She knows that she has a really young team and that the future is bright if they keep getting better. She would have liked a win on Saturday, but was somewhat pleased with the way her girls battled.
"I know we played better here today and we did last year as we started off strong. We have a young team with two 15-year-olds out there, so we're headed in the right direction. We had a much stronger season this year," she added.
The Turkeys scored the first point on a Baylor hitting error, but that was their only lead as the Lady Red Raiders broke from a 2-2 tie for a 7-3 lead.
A kill from Emma Mulvaney extended the Baylor advantage to 14-8 when Watson called her first timeout, but a block from Kaiulani Sherrow and two aces from Mulvaney extended the Baylor lead to 18-9 and it didn't get much closer.
The second set was St. Mary's best of the day as they got four straight service points from Eleanor Chandler to build a 7-3 lead. A kill from Sophie Fernandez stretched the difference to 9-3 when Lail called her first timeout.
The difference was 18-14 before Kenzie Johnson got a kill and Brenna Bagley had three straight service points to knot the score. A kill from Hammel tied the score at 18-18 before St. Mary's scored two straight points. Two more kills from Hammel tied the score again at 20-20 before Baylor scored five of the last six points to win for a 2-0 set advantage, the winning point coming on a kill from Mulvaney.
Five kills from Keith allowed the Turkeys to build a 7-3 lead, but a service error made it 7-4 before Jasper took charge and knocked down seven straight points, including three of her six aces. Hammel's kill made it 11-7.
Back-to-back kills from Ejame Ataga allowed the Turkeys to get within two at 12-10. A kill from Mulvaney made it 14-11 before Rory Oleksik recorded five straight service points for a commanding 19-11 lead and it wasn't long afterward that Baylor won the match to advance.
Hammel finished with 13 kills to lead the Baylor hitters while Johnson had nine and Mulvaney seven. Oleksik led with 10 digs while Sherrow had 17 assists. Milyn Hold was next with 15 assists. Molly Billington had three blocks while Jasper had six aces to lead the Baylor servers while Mulvaney and Hold both had three.
Baylor now awaits the state tournament bracket, but play will begin on Tuesday at Providence Christian School. The D-II-AA championship match will be at MTSU's Murphy Center on Thursday.
BAYLOR STATS:
Brenna Bagley – 2 aces, 5 digs
Rylee Jasper – 6 aces
Molly Billington – 3 kills, 3 blocks
Fergie Hammel – 13 kills, 1 dig
Rory Oleksik – 2 aces, 10 digs
Nina Lail – 7 digs
Kaiulani Sherrow – 1 kill, 17 assists
Emma Mulvaney – 7 kills, 1 assist, 3 aces, 7 digs
Willa Provonsha – 1 kill, 2 blocks, 1 dig
Milyn Hold – 1 kill, 15 assists, 3 aces, 2 digs
Kenzie Johnson – 9 kills, 1 dig.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)
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