John Bruce, Editor
Southern Ohio Sports Authority is presented by Holzer Health System.
STEWART — The path to the TVC-Hocking crown still runs through Reedsville.
For the third consecutive season, Eastern has captured at least a share of the league’s championship.
On Thursday, the Eagles (16-1, 8-0 TVC) traveled to Federal Hocking and swept the second-place Lancers to secure that championship — a 26-24, 25-16, 25-23 final.
However, throughout the first set, it looked like it was going to be a dog fight to determine the evening’s winner.
Federal Hocking (15-3, 5-3 TVC) got out to a solid start, riding outstanding defensive play from senior libero Brenlee Cottrill, alongside Megan Reichardt, Karlee Grimm and Guada Pustavrh at the net. The defensive display allowed them to slow down the Eagles’ dynamic offensive attack.
The teams traded leads throughout the opener with both making highlight-reel plays on the defensive end.
That was before Eastern’s Braelyn Simpson began to cook at the net.
And when Simpson gets rolling, when she’s teamed with setter Kinslie Well, the Eagles are a fine-tuned machine on the attack.
But it was an attack that the Lancers were able to withstand.
By not allowing Simpson to get to the second, and third, level that she is able to get to, Federal Hocking stayed in the fight, even earning a chance to serve for set point with a 24-23 advantage.
On set point, the Eagles played a back row hit to Simpson, which was mishandled to tie the set at 24-24. Eastern took the lead with a solo block from Peyton Bailey and earned the win after an FH hitting error.
“You can see the growth and maturity since we started together three years ago,” Eastern head coach Courtney Whittington said of the opening set. “We’ve talked about not being mentally weak. We missed a ton of serves in that opening set, but they fixed that over the next two sets.”
And fix it they did.
PHOTOS: Images from Eastern’s win over Federal Hocking
In the second, with the game tied at 6-6, the Eagles took over once they sent senior Brooklyn Barkey to the service line.
The next time that a player besides Barkey served, Eastern had a 16-7 lead. In that run of points, Barley served up a pair of aces while Bailey, Sadi Haught and Makenzie Robertson all put down kills, showing the Eagles’ depth.
“Our goal was to be aggressive at the service line, since we like to get people out of their system,” Whittington said of her team’s ability in service. “Brooklyn has shown great leadership. She didn’t like how the game started and she just wanted the ball, and I love that. She’ll always be the biggest cheerleader, but she’ll be the one that steps up, too. Same with Makenzie and Ashlynn [Thomas].”
Federal Hocking tried to make a run to get back into the set, but aces from Well and Emeri Lloyd helped the Eagles keep the Lancers at bay with a 25-16 victory.
The Eagles continued building off the previous set wins and coasted their way to a sweep, punctuated with consecutive kills from Barkey in the third set to wrap up another TVC title.
“This is the type of game that prepares us for the tournament,” Whittington said of Federal Hocking. “They have quality middles and that was something that we struggled with last year. I think that [Bailey] and [Barkey] really showed up tonight. They did a great job, so did [Haught], Aedre [Ault] and Addy [Atha].”
Two seasons ago, the Eagles finished atop the standings with an 8-2 record. Last season, the Eagles split the regular season with Southern to earn a share of the title at 9-1.
But this season, the Eagles have the league championship wrapped up with two games left to play.
“We’ve really been working hard,” Whittington said. “The girls really focused tonight and they knew what they wanted out of it. Next week, we have a lot of games to prepare us for the tournament. We’ve got Parkersburg and Warren in a tri-match on Monday, then we go to Waterford and that’s always a tough place to play. Then, our rivals on Thursday and that game is always packed.
“I’m really thankful that our community travels the way it does. They show up and they support the girls, as you could hear. Our girls knew that they needed to show up, not only for themselves but for our crowd, too.”
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