By Mark Carpenter-
Southern Hills Athletic Conference volleyball action came to Manchester High School on Tuesday, Sept. 8 as the Lady Hounds played host to the North Adams Lady Devils. The Lady Hounds were looking for their first win of the season while the visitors were looking to remain unbeaten in early conference play.
As it turned out, the Lady Devils were able to improve to 3-0 in SHAC play, but it wasn’t before the home team put up a fight though the scoreboard read straight sets to North Adams, 25-15, 25-18, 29-27.
As they would do in all three sets, the Lady Devils jumped to early leads behind the serves of junior Sierra Kendall, In the first set, North Adams was up 5-0 after a trio if Kendall service aces before the Lady Hounds got their bearings and rallied to take an 11-10 lead on a block at the net by Yasmin Lucas.
That turned out to be the only Manchester lead of the set as the Lady Devils responded behind the strength of Wylie Shipley serving, grabbing the next six points to go up by five. With sophomore Keetyn Hupp at the serve, the visitors maintained that advantage and then up 19-15, rode the wave of five service points from Kendall and closed the 25-15 set win with a DeLaney Harper kill.
Again in the second set, the Lady Devils stormed out of the gate with Kendall serving, Harper controlling the net, and libero Jadyn Wright patrolling the back line to take an 11-2 advantage. Facing the large deficit, the resilient Lady Hounds clawed their way back into the set, helped by the serves of senior Karigan Turner, to slice the North Adams lead down to 12-7. Kills by Harper and Hupp helped the Lady Devils stay in front, and then they began to pull away, with kills by Harper, Lizzie Gill, and Marah Call placing them at set point, up 24-16. The Lady Hounds stayed alive on tow service points by Brooke Kennedy but a Hupp kill sewed up set two for the guests, giving them a commanding 2-0 lead in the match.
Down by two sets, the Lady Hounds could have folded the tents, but instead came out and put up a strong performance in the third. Again they fell in an instant hole as Kendall served North Adams to a 4-0 lead, but kills by Brooke Kennedy and Kameyl Carter pulled the home team into a 7-7 tie. North Adams took seven of the next nine points to go back in front and after a pair of Harper service aces looked to be in the driver’s seat with a 19-12 advantage.
The Lady Hounds had different ideas, however, with kills by Kennedy and Hannah Hobbs sandwiched among a trio of Carter service points, quickly tied the set at 23. What followed was an exciting series of kills that sent the set into overtime- Harper and Shipley for North Adams, Kennedy for Manchester, Shipley for North Adams, and Carter for Manchester that evened the set at 27 all, but it was the final two kills of the night that sent the Lady Devils home as winner, one from Hupp and one from Harper to finish off the third set, 29-27.
“Manchester certainly didn’t look like an 0-4 team tonight,” said North Adams head coach Katie Ragan in her postgame interview with C103 Radio. “They dig the ball well, the killed us with some short serves, and they blocked well. Our kids just don’t get down on themselves but they don’t get too excited either.”
Our three seniors (Harper, Shipley, Call) have played a lot of volleyball so we rely on them a lot. Jadyn Wright doesn’t get enough appreciation for all the digging she does for us and she played really well tonight. Sierra (Kendall) seems to be all over the court and gets to balls that you never think she could.”
With the win, the Lady Devils improved to 4-2 overall, and them improved that to 5-2 with a win over Portsmouth Clay on Wednesday night. After the North Adams loss, the Lady Hounds were 0-4 but picked up their first win of the season, also on Wednesday night, when they knocked off the Ripley lady Jays.
In Tuesday night’s JV contest, it was Manchester coming out on top- 25-23, 22-25, 25-16.