Staff Reports
ALEXANDRIA – The Cherokee County Lady Warrior volleyball team’s hashtag is ‘shock them all.’
On Thursday night in the Class 4A Area 12 tournament championship match against host Alexandria, the Lady Warriors did just that.
Behind the tournament’s overall Most Valuable Player Macy Lea and Offensive MVP Nevaeh Gaidurgis, the Lady Warriors were able to outlast the Lady Cubs in five sets. The scores were 25-23, 22-25, 25-23, 12-25 and 15-12.
Cherokee County (40-13) also swept White Plains in the tournament semifinals. Those scores were 25-23, 25-18 and 25-14.
Thursday was the third meeting between Alexandria and Cherokee County this season. It was the first time this season the Lady Warriors defeated them.
“Our hashtag is ‘shock them all.’ That’s when this bunch of juniors was eighth graders,” Cherokee County head coach Tiffany Rieger said. “Nobody expected us to be good whatsoever then. I kind of used it and it just kind of stuck. I told them tonight before the last set, ‘We’re 15 points away from shocking everybody. Just go out there and do it.’ They were just determined.”
One of those determined players was Lea. She accounted for 31 assists, three kills and nine digs for the Lady Warriors in the championship match.
Not bad for someone playing on a bum ankle.
“Macy is literally playing on a broken ankle right now. You can’t tell it. She grins and bears it, but she doesn’t miss a beat,” Rieger said. “She was tough and moving the ball around. She was trying to find the mismatches on who she needed to set when. She did a good job being a weapon herself. She deserved it for sure. It makes me proud to see the determination that kid has.”
The Lady Warriors threw Alexandria a new wrinkle on Thursday than they had their previous two meetings. Rieger said her team has been working on speeding their offense up and working on covering shots the Lady Cubs like to hit.
“I put Deannia Starr in after set one because she’s 6-(foot)-1. She’s the tallest player I’ve got. We threw her in there because (Alexandria senior outside hitter) Eryn Spradley had not seen her yet,” Rieger said. “We thought maybe that would throw her off her game, and I think it did a little bit. She was hitting some out of bounds, just trying to dodge Dee’s hands. That helped us out a lot.”
What also helped the Lady Warriors, Rieger said, was “keeping the positivity, better body language, and playing with more confidence.”
“Even my little DS (defensive specialist) Jesslyn Hincy, only an eighth grader, she had 17 digs in the Alexandria match. She had almost as many as Ellisan (Givens), and that’s huge, especially for an eighth grader. I’m super-proud of her,” Rieger said. “That kind of determination Jesslyn showed the whole team had.
“There were times where Alexandria would go on a run and we’d have to call a timeout to talk about ‘Hey they’re good. They’re going to get their swings, but it’s okay. We’ve just got to take the momentum back.’ We did a much better job tonight.”
In the championship match, Gaidurgis gained 13 kills, 11 digs, and three blocks. Ava Haygood delivered 13 kills, five digs and three blocks. Jolie Alexander collected 10 kills, three digs, four blocks and four aces. Lilly Shaw managed five kills, three blocks and a dig. Givens garnered 18 digs, four assists and an ace. Hincy finished with 17 digs, two aces and two assists.
In the semifinal win over White Plains, Lea managed 31 assists, three digs and a kill. Gaidurgis delivered17 kills, six digs, and an ace. Haygood had nine kills, six digs and a block. Alexander delivered nine kills, three aces, a block, two digs and an assist. Givens finished with nine digs, an ace and an assist.
Alexander, Givens, and Haygood joined Lea and Gaidurgis from the Lady Warriors on the all-tournament team.
“A lot of people expect Nevaeh and Ava to get our kills, but tonight, we had several players who contributed in a lot of ways,” Rieger said. “Jolie, Lilly, they had their share of swings. We also had some very smart shots thrown in there too, maybe not power hitting, but we made some really smart shots when we couldn’t get those power swings.”
Now the Lady Warriors will swing their way to the North Super Regional in Hoover on Wednesday at 12:45 p.m. They will take on Area 13 runner-up East Lawrence.
“We didn’t come (to Alexandria) just to get area runner-up. We came in there to go home with a (championship) trophy,” Rieger said. “After we beat White Plains, the pressure was off. We knew we were going to the next round. We knew nobody in the state expected us to upset Alexandria. I talked to the girls about the pressure being off. We had a game plan going in we felt pretty confident would work, and tonight we just executed it better than we did the last time.”
