Fairfield takes seventh grade crown, eighth grade goes to North Adams –
By Mark Carpenter –
In a monumental effort that begins one evening and ends the next afternoon, the Southern Hills Athletic Conference Junior High Volleyball Tournament were held on Oct. 6 and 7 at Fairfield Junior High and Fairfield High School. The tourney is annually hosted by Fairfield because of their two gymnasiums being in such close proximity to each other, and this year 18 seventh and eighth grade matches were played from 5 p.m. on Friday night to the middle of the afternoon on Saturday when things all wrapped up.
Sometimes in tournament play, the favorites don’t win, but that was not the case last weekend. In seventh grade play, an undefeated Fairfield squad took home a title while in eighth grade action, the North Adams Lady Devils held serve and claimed the eighth grade tourney championship.
The seventh grade tournament began on Friday night with a pair of first round matches, Peebles defeating Ripley and West Union defeating Whiteoak. In the seventh grade quarterfinals, Fairfield downed Peebles, Eastern Brown topped Lynchburg Clay, Manchester knocked off West Union, and North Adams defeated Fayetteville.
That set up the late Friday evening seventh grade semi-finals, where Fairfield got past Eastern Brown and Manchester downed county rival North Adams to set up the Saturday championship game in which Fairfield took home the championship hardware with their win over the Lady Greyhounds.
All of the eighth grade tournament was played on Saturday, beginning early with two opening round matches that saw Ripley defeat Eastern Brown and Whiteoak get by Lynchburg. That moved action to the quarterfinal round, where top-seed North Adams got past Ripley, Fayetteville defeated West Union, Fairfield topped Whiteoak, and Manchester downed Peebles.
In the two Saturday semi-final matches, North Adams defeated Fayetteville and Fairfield topped Manchester, setting up a Fairfield-North Adams championship match. Playing their third match of the day, the Lady Devils prevailed and capped off an undefeated 2017 season with an eighth grade tournament championship.