Baptist Prep 3, Huntsville 0
BATESVILLE -- The Baptist Prep Lady Eagles are on a roll and don't seem ready to stop any time soon.
On Tuesday, the Lady Eagles won their 20th consecutive match and opened the Class 4A State Volleyball Tournament with a 3-0 rout of the Huntsville Eagles at Becknell Gym on the campus of Lyon College.
The Lady Eagles won the first two sets with a big surge in the middle of each game. In the first set, they turned an 8-7 edge into a 21-10 advantage with a 13-3 run.
In the third set, Huntsville, which was the defending state runner-up coming into this year's tournament, jumped out on top 5-2 early on, and when Baptist Prep began to make a push, Huntsville pushed right back and opened up a 16-11 advantage. But eventually Baptist did make a run and caught up with Huntsville at 18-18 on a kill by Julie Young.
Huntsville's third rotation violation of the match gave Baptist Prep its first lead in the set. The score was tied one last time at 20-20 before a kill by Young started a 5-0 Baptist Prep run to finish the set, with Molly Lane serving an ace for the winner.
Baptist Prep finished with 36 kills. Young had seven while Kenzie Hanks added six.
Huntsville finished with 20 kills, eight by Destinee Harmon.
Baptist Prep (25-5) has not dropped a match since losing a four-setter to Lonoke on Sept. 11. The Lady Eagles' only other loss to a Class 4A team was to Southside during the first week of the season. Because of those two losses, Baptist Prep was seeded third behind those two teams in the 4A-Central District Tournament. The Lady Eagles avenged their loss to Southside by taking down the Lady Southerners in the semifinals and then beat Central Arkansas Christian in the championship after the Lady Mustangs had upset top-seeded Lonoke in the semifinals.
"Even though it was early in the season, we did lose to them, so we couldn't argue about getting seeded third," first-year Baptist Prep Coach Krista Spoon said. "We wanted to go there and prove ourselves on the court. We've been playing well most of the season and I knew we had it in us to win the district. And this week we want to keep that run going."
Sports on 10/25/2017