County Volleyball Squads Battle

By Clint Cox

The ladies volleyball squads through the county have been busy this past week, including several contest in which the county squads have battled each other. After beating Holmes County last Tuesday in three straight games, the Sneads Lady Pirates faced Graceville in another District game last Thursday. The Pirates swept Graceville 25-4, 25-7, and 25-7. That brought the Lady Pirates regular season record to 10-1 and district record to 6-0. In the Graceville game, Meagan Smith racked up an incredible 15 ace serves, while Sierra Hewett had 7 ace serves, and Kara Alford had 4. In Kills, it was Meagan Smith again out front with 7, while Bridgett Dawson tallied four kills and Ashley Smith had three. Bridgett, who is normally the Pirate libero, stepped up to play outside hitter for injured Jordan Jackson. Tiffany Guerra was able to record 13 assists for the night, 3 ace serves, and one kill.

On Monday night the Cottondale Lady Hornets took on the Marianna Lady Bulldogs at the Dog House. In all that Jackson County match up, Marianna posted three wins to notch a clean sweep of the Lady Hornets. In game one Michelle Bassin’s kill gave Marianna a 8-5 early lead. But Cottondale’s Mary Auger served up five straight points to give the Lady Hornets a 11-8 lead. Marianna rallied to tie the game at 14-14. The score went back and forth and was again tied at 19-19. From there Marianna surged as another kill by Bassin made it 22-19 and the Lady Bulldogs went on to a 25-21 win.

Game two went the way of Marianna by a score of 25-18. Marianna led early but Cottondale battled back to trail by one at 7-6. Marianna took a four point lead but again the Lady Hornets kept battling. A well placed return by Syrinna Pope again cut the deficit to one at 13-12. Marianna began to pull away though late in the game and a kill by Sharhae Williams gave the Lady Bulldogs a 22-17 lead. Game three saw Cottondale take an early 4-2 lead on a block by Pope. Marianna countered to take the lead and led 12-9 before Kieysa Paul served up three straight points to tie the game. With the game tied at 14-14 Marianna began to take control and pushed their lead to 18-15 and then went on a run to see their lead at 24-16. Cottondale made a valiant comeback attempt but fell 25-21 to end the evening.

Cottondale bounced back from that county loss with another county rivalry as Graceville came to the Hive on Tuesday night. The Lady Hornets took the match with three straight wins by scores of 25-15, 25-11 and 25-15. Cottondale will continue their round of county matchups on Thursday when they play host to the Sneads Lady Pirates in a district contest.