Lady Ads ace Spartans
Farragut avenges earlier loss to Webb
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Airborne is FHS’s Katherine Cabaniss, 3. Also pictured is Reese Goodson, 16. - Photos by Tony Christen
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Spartan players, left, Jessica Daiagi, 17, and Denice Gaston, 2. - Photos by Tony Christen
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Lady Admirals, Bella Ekeler, 17. - Photos by Tony Christen
Anyone familiar at all with the game of volleyball knows how streaky the game can be, both within and between the sets that make up a match.
Monday night at Webb School of Knoxville, streakiness was the rule throughout as Farragut High School won the first two sets, dropped the next two, then held on in the fifth to win the match, three sets to two.
“We’re just very bipolar right now,” Lady Admirals’ coach Andre Alves said. “We find our rhythm, we find our game, then something triggers which I need to figure out, and the wheels fall off the cart badly.”
“Really good ball movement on both sides,” Lady Spartans’ coach Nicklin Hames said. “They took it to us the first two sets, then we put it to ‘em in the next two. Fifth set was a battle back and forth.”
A 6-1 run in the first set helped Webb build a 17-13 lead. FHS then won four points in a row, gave up two, won three, then five of the last six to take the set 25-20.
Two scoring streaks by FHS in the second set 7-0 early on, six of which were served by Hailey Aiken, and 9-3 at the end – gave the Lady Admirals the set, 25-18, and a two-set lead.
Two sets later, FHS’s lead was gone and the match was tied. Several short scoring streaks by Webb, including four of the last five points, gave the Lady Spartans the third set, 25-19.
In the fourth, the girls in green raced to leads of 4-0, and 10-3. Every one of the next 17 points were part of scoring runs by the two teams, which led to a 17-13 Webb lead.
Eight of the last 12 points went to the Lady Spartans –who won the set 25-17 – and the match was knotted.
“Young, inexperienced … sometimes the moment is too big,” Alves said of his girls losing the lead. “Because they’re so stressed out, so anxious, so nervous … then errors start piling up.”
But Farragut then reversed the match streakiness and took the fifth and deciding set, 15-13. Down 12-11, FHS took four of the last five points to close it out.
Megan Frana led the Lady Admirals with 14 digs while Reese Goodson was high in kills with 15. Setter Bella Ekeler led with 27 assists.
“In the third set, I feel like we were too comfortable with how we’d done in the first two,” said Frana, a freshman. “In the fourth set I think we were down on ourselves from our set before. (In the fifth) everyone just kept pushing their hardest.”
The Lady Admirals’ win avenged their Aug. 28 3-2 loss to Webb. Tomorrow night FHS hosts Lenoir City High School.
