Local volleyball teams prep for postseason
Published 11:00 pm Thursday, October 17, 2013
With the regular season in the books for all four Troy-area volleyball teams, the area tournaments and playoffs are one the horizon.
The Goshen Eagles knocked off Ariton Thursday night to finish season 16-0 in regular games, and 18-2 overall, including tournaments. The Eagles made a clean sweep through their region and will host the area tournament Monday afternoon.
Goshen head coach Amy Warrick said earlier in the season that she felt her team was ready to take the next step and make it past the regional tournament. Goshen will make the first step Monday.
“Our goal is to make it past Montgomery,” Warrick said. “We have the talent, and this team will only get better. They are playing together, and are playing with a purpose.”
Pike Liberal Arts rolled through its regular season, finishing 15-3 and ranked No. 3in the state by AL.com. The only losses Pike suffered in the season came at the hands of the two teams ranked above them, Macon-East and Lee-Scott.
The Lady Pats play host to Glenwood in the first round of the region tournament Monday afternoon.
Pike County travels to Montgomery for their area tournament this Monday.
Head coach Karie Striplin said that her girls have been working hard to prepare for the competitive matches.
“We have been working on people playing in the same position,” Striplin said. “Our main thing has been consistency. We want to be attacking short balls consistently and serving consistently. If each girl can get five digs, five kills, and five serves, we’ll win the game.”
The Bulldogs are rated third in their area and are slated to take on rival Abbeville at 12:30 in the single-elimination tournament.
Charles Henderson will meet Headland in the first round its area tournament in Ashford Tuesday. The Lady Trojans have not had the season that wanted, but head coach Jennifer Sikes feels her team has made strides over the past few weeks, and could be peaking at just the right time for a playoff run.
“If you have to have peaks and valleys, you definitely want to be peaking as close to area as you can,” said Sikes. “The girls continue to work, and get better. We have worked on a couple of things that we saw we needed to fix over the last couple of weeks. Our serves are better, our passing is better and our defense is much better. We are much better team now, than we were earlier in the season.”