Greenwood Christian started off fast against Morristown in Saturday’s Class A volleyball sectional semifinal match at Edinburgh.
As the match wore on, the Cougars made some miscues and errors to let Morristown back in the match, and they couldn’t recover in a 25-22, 25-13, 25-17 loss to the Yellow Jackets.
“I felt like we were playing in set 1. They were mentally focused,” Greenwood Christian coach Keshia Southern said. “After set 1, I don’t feel like we got beat, but I feel like we beat ourselves. We made errors, we made mental errors that ultimately ended up with Morristown winning.
“They were more mentally prepared than we were today, but we’re going to come out strong next season.”
In the first set, the Cougars (14-15) brought some intensity on offense and they powered to a 5-3 lead and later extending it to 12-8. GCA couldn’t muster a bigger run to put the set away, and Morristown never gave up an inch. The Yellow Jackets still trailed at 22-19 before they exploded for six straight points and took their one and only lead of the set to close it out.
The Cougars couldn’t recover from the late first-set woes, and Morristown quickly raced out to a 10-1 lead to open up the second set. Greenwood Christian didn’t have an answer for it, and they quickly became two sets down to start the third.
GCA put up a fight in the third set and had it tied at 12-12. The Yellow Jackets, though, put the exclamation mark on the match, going on an 11-3 run and never looking back.
Despite Saturday’s loss, Southern was pleased with how her team progressed throughout the season.
“We grew together as a team. I think everyone grew as players,” Southern said. “All I can say is that it was a lot of growth from where we began the season to where we ended. We tried multiple things to get people in the right spots, and I feel like they experienced a lot of growth as players, as people and as athletes. I’m very proud of them.”
Southern returns most of the squad with the exception of senior middle hitter Dory O’Dell.
“(O’Dell) will be dearly missed in the middle, for sure,” Southern said. “I feel like we worked really hard on team cohesion and because of that hard work we put in this season on that cohesion, our hope is that it carries over into next year as we add players. We have a lot of talent coming up. As we add, the team changes a little bit, but the cohesion will still be there. It took a good amount of the season to build that, so I feel like that’s only our benefit to start off with that.”