MURFREESBORO — The South Greene Lady Rebels dropped to the losers bracket with a 25-10, 25-17, 25-17 loss to the Loretto Lady Mustangs in the Class A volleyball state tournament on Wednesday at Blackman High School.
The Lady Mustangs, now 50-3, showed why they are favored to hoist the championship trophy at the end of the tourney.
“We knew coming in we had a very tough opponent, a lot of people’s favorite to win the whole thing,” South Greene coach Stephen Gregg said. “We couldn’t afford to have the start we had in set one.
“It took us about a set and a half before we realized we could still do some good things against a strong opponent. I’m still proud of them. A lot of people didn't give us a chance to be down here and here we are, chipping away with probably the No. 1 team in the state.”
Loretto dominated the net, tallying eight kills and five blocks in the first set alone.
Loretto took leads of 8-3 and 14-5 to open the first set, led by kills from Mallory Corbin, Ally Weathers, Anna Cheatham and Sophie Weathers. South Greene managed to get one kill from Reagan Arrowood and a block from Baylee Jennings.
South Greene scraped together a few points late, but Loretto’s Rebecca Heineman served six straight points in a 10-2 run that capped the 25-10 win.
South Greene played set two with a bit more fire, but it didn’t show at the start.
The Lady Rebels struggled to get anything past the Lady Mustangs' front line once again, leading to a 14-5 deficit before Gregg called a timeout to regroup.
The teams exchanged points before Loretto held a 19-8 lead, then the Lady Rebels started piecing together good chunks of points.
Sadie Trammell served five straight, assisted by back-to-back kills from Davanie Tarlton, to make it 19-13. Loretto broke the run with a kill, but the Lady Rebels put together three straight – including a kill and a block from Tarlton – to make it 20-16.
However, the Lady Mustangs were able to reset and score five of the next six points to take the set 25-17.
“I felt like, execution-wise, as the match went on, we started to do the things we talked about in our pregame scouting report,” Gregg said. “I think we helped some other teams down here, to show some things as the match went on. I just wish our girls could have exposed that sooner. But I felt like as the day went on, we played better. We can’t do that again. We gotta have strong starts and stronger finishes.”
The third set was played much tighter by the Lady Rebels. They took leads of 3-1 and 7-4 with Trammell serving four straight, including an ace.
Loretto responded with four straight points to regain the lead, 8-7, but South Greene battled back, matching the Lady Mustangs nearly point for point until it was tied at 13.
The teams alternated kills with Loretto’s Corbin, Ally Weathers and Heinemann and South Greene’s Jennings and Tarlton providing the majority of the points to reach a 16-16 tie.
Loretto then scored nine of the next 10 points, including seven in a row, for the 25-17 win.
“In this sport, we aren’t the biggest team,” Gregg said. “We got big hearts and we try hard, but we don’t have as many heavy hitters as teams down here. So we have to buy into the defensive passing.
"I felt like we were slipping on oil there late. We had a couple passes that got us out of system. That's the thing about this sport, it’s all momentum. It could take one play or two plays that snowball into three or four and in this case, it was a 7-0 run. But the girls should know that they were right there in it. I’m pleased that they didn’t lay down.”
South Greene was slated to play Summertown in the losers bracket at 9:30 a.m Thursday.
“We just gotta put this game in the rearview,” Gregg said. “The rearview is there for a reason. We gotta look to Thursday and that preparation starts now. We gotta find something fun down here to do, a group activity. But we’re not going to go back into that hotel and dwell on this one.”
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