Thursday, October 29, 2009

Lady Pirates Advance In District Tourney; Cottondale, Graceville And Marianna Ousted

By Clint Cox

The Sneads Lady Pirates volleyball squad just keeps on cruising as they zipped through the first two rounds of their district tournament this week in Blountstown. On Monday night the Lady Pirates downed the Graceville Lady Tigers 3-0 as they posted wins of 25-6, 25-7 and 25-4. For the Lady Tigers the loss ended their season. For the Lady Pirates it meant they advanced to round two on Tuesday night to take on South Walton.

The Lady Seahawks advanced to play Sneads with a hard fought win over the Cottondale Lady Hornets on Monday night. Cottondale battled hard and the match went five sets before South Walton claimed the victory. Game one went to Cottondale in thrilling fashion as the Lady Hornets posted a 27-25 win. But South Walton came back with a 25-14 win in game two and then a 25-16 win in game three. Cottondale still had some fight in them as they slammed the Lady Seahawks 25-6 to win game four. That set up the all important game five and it went right down to the wire. Scheduled to go to the first team to get 15 points and win by two, South Walton pulled out a 19-17 victory. Cottondale’s season came to a close with the heartbreaking loss.

Sneads and South Walton squared off on Tuesday and the Lady Pirates swept the Seahawks 3-0. Game one saw South Walton jump out to an early 3-0 lead before Sneads got going. Meagan Smith’s kill got Sneads on the scoreboard and they began to catch fire. After tying the set at 4-4 Bridgette Dawson served up five points to get Sneads a 9-4 lead. The Lady Pirates went up 13-7 when Tiffany Guerra served up 3 points to make it 16-7. Sierra Hewett’s kill made it a 20-10 game moments later and Sneads went on to a 25-14 win. Game two featured a fast start by Sneads as Ashley Smith served up 7 points to start the set. Jordan Jackson came up with a kill and dink to make it 8-2 in Sneads favor. Hewett served up 3 points to push the Lady Pirates lead to 11-3. South Walton would battle back to make it a 18-10 game but Sneads took care of business with a 25-15 win. Game three was all Sneads as they got their serves going in big fashion. Ashley Smith served up 4 points, Dawson had 6 service points, Meagan Smith had 6 service points as the Lady Pirates cruised to a 25-4 win.

Sneads, which improved to 23-4, is scheduled to play in the District Championship game on Thursday night in Blountstown. They will take on the winner of Tuesday night’s other semi-final contest between Blountstown and Vernon. The Lady Pirates will then prepare for the first round of the FHSAA Class 2A playoffs scheduled to start November 4th.

Like the Cottondale Lady Hornets, the Marianna Lady Bulldogs volleyball season came to a hard fought and disappointing end on Tuesday night. Marianna had traveled to Panama City for their district tournament at Bay High School and were taking on the Chipley Lady Tigers. In three closely contested sets, Chipley came away with a 3-0 win to advance in the district tournament. Marianna fell 25-21, 25-23 and 25-21 to see their season come to a close.

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