WCHS falls to Bluff

The White County High School volleyball team came up a little short Tuesday night in key Area 7-AAA match with Cherokee Bluff.

The Lady Warriors dropped a 2-1 decision to the Lady Bears, and fell to 2-4 in area play.

The Lady Warriors won the opening set of the match and had a chance to spoil Cherokee Bluff's Senior Night festivities, but the Lady Bears rallied late in the second set to keep the match alive and finished things off in the third set to push their area record to 3-1. North Hall and Lumpkin lead the area standings with  4-1 records.

“We felt like we should have beaten Bluff in two sets, but we made some mistakes and were able to capitalize on some things,” WCHS head coach Shannon Smith said. “We've got to be able to finish, and we weren't able to finish against Bluff. We have some areas where we need to improve, like service return, so we're going to work on some different strategies in practice and try to fix those problems.”

White County got off to a slow start as Cherokee Bluff jumped out to a quick lead in the opening set, but the Lady Warriors found their composure and battled back. Bluff won the first three points of the set, leading to a 7-2 lead. Bluff's biggest lead of the set came at 11-4, but the Lady Warriors went on a big run to tie things up at 12-12. Rusty Dye had a kill and an ace during the spurt, while Claire Beckman had two blocks, and Camryn Dorsey added a kill. Linsey Burke tied the match with an ace, and then had two more aces as the Lady Warriors finished off a 10-1 run to take a 14-12 lead.

Bluff didn't go away, retaking the lead at 16-15. The two teams basically traded points due to hitting errors and service return errors, and were tied at 20-20 heading into the final stretch of the set.

The Lady Warriors took the lead at 21-20, when Burke set up Dye for a kill. The point not only gave WCHS the lead, but it was also the 1,000th career assist for Burke, the program's all-time leader in assists.

Following the point, the match was stopped for a short ceremony to honor Burke's achievement as the WCHS coaching staff presented Burke with a plaque.

“We were super excited to be able to honor her during the match,”  Smith said. “It's pretty incredible to be able to reach that number as a sophomore. She's a dynamic player on the court, and she's so humble about it.”

When play began, the Lady Warriors rolled off four straight points to finish off the set.

Maggie Blair scored at the net for a 22-20 lead, and then Bluff was called for two straight net violations to push the lead to 24-20. Jenna Pratt closed out the set with an ace, giving the Lady Warriors a 1-0 lead.

In the second set, the Lady Warriors led 9-7 on an ace by Maggie Blair, but Bluff took advantage of a couple of mistakes to tie things up at 11-11. Burke had a pair of aces to get the lead back, but Bluff won three of the next four points to take a 15-14 lead.

Pratt had an ace and Dorsey had a kill to tie things up at 19-19, and then Maggie Blair had three consecutive service winners to give White County a 22-19 lead. A Bluff block and a Lady Warrior hitting error made it 22-21, and then Burke set up Dye for a kill to make it 23-21.

Bluff got a kill from Sierra Piland and a block from Grace Blyth Cornett to tie things up at 23-23. The set ended with a pair of return errors by the Lady Warriors, giving Bluff a 25-23 win.

In the third set, Dorsey had a pair of aces to give WCHS a quick 5-1 lead. But a block and kill by Piland and three kills by Sage Sutulovich erased the lead, giving Bluff a 7-5 lead.

Later in the set, Dye scored at the net and Maggie Blair had a kill to tie tings up at 10-10. The Lady Warriors took a 13-12 lead when Beckman scored at the net after a strong serve from Dye, but a service error gave Bluff a point to tie it at 13-13.

Dorsey scored the Lady Warriors' final point of the match, recording a kill off a set from Burke to make it 14-13, but Bluff tied it on a shot by Emma Staples. Sutulovich ended a long point with a kill for a 15-14 and the match ended on a service return error, giving the Lady Bears a 16-14 win to clinch the match.

Dye had six kills, one ace, one assist, and a dig, while Dorsey finished with five kills and two aces. Maggie Blair had five aces, three kills, two digs, and an assist, with Burke adding four aces, 11 assists, and five digs.

Beckman had three kills, two blocks, and two digs, and Jenna Pratt had two aces and two digs. Savannah Martin and Marilyn Martinez each had three digs, Layla Turner and Abbie Rankl each had two digs, Sarah Blair had an ace and a dig, and Kate Blair had one kill.

In the second match of the night, the Lady Warriors picked up a 2-0 win over Mountain View, a Class AAAAAAA program. The Lady Warriors opened the match with a 25-14 win, and closed out the match with a 25-16 decision.

Maggie Blair had five kills, five aces, and a dig, while Burke had seven assists, four digs, and a kill. Dorsey had five kills, an ace, and an assist, with Beckman had two aces, two digs, one kill, a block, and an assist. Turner had five digs and three assists, Martinez had five digs, an ace, and an assist, and Dye had two kills and an ace. Sarah Blair had three aces, Kate Blair had a kill, Pratt, Emma Kerley and Peyton Hayse each had an assist, and Martin had a dig.

The Lady Warriors are off until Sept. 29 when they will host an area tri-match with Gilmer County and East Forsyth.

The tri-match will end the Lady Warriors' regular season area slate, and the team needs to sweep the match to have some momentum going into the 7-AAA tournament, which starts Oct. 6.

“Our area is tough,” Smith said. “We are going to continue to try and get better, and we need to pull out some wins during the last part of the season. We want to go into the area tournament strong and ready.”