A straight-game loss to Heritage-Catoosa isn’t exactly what Southeast Whitfield’s volleyball team needed to open Area 7-3A play on Tuesday, but the Lady Raiders made use of it on host Dalton’s court.
Southeast — ranked 10th in the latest Ga.PrepCountry.com Class 3A coaches poll — was behind by nine in the first game against Heritage before it even got a kill, losing 25-19, 26-24 to the Lady Generals. But that lit a fire underneath coach Jake Dickey’s squad, and the Lady Raiders went on to sweep matches with Dalton, 25-17, 26-24, and Pickens, 26-24, 25-13, at the Cats’ Den.
Dalton beat Pickens as well, 25-11, 25-16, and won a marathon match with Heritage in the nightcap, 23-25, 29-27, 25-22.
The Lady Cats are now 5-7 overall and, like Southeast, 2-1 in 7-3A play.
“We are still just fighting to put together consistent efforts to stay focused,” said Dickey, whose Lady Raiders are now 9-8 overall.
Focus was definitely a problem early as Southeast had 18 hitting errors in the second game against Heritage.
Against Dalton, the Lady Raiders were up by six before the Lady Cats came back to push an extra point. That came after Dalton took a 10-4 lead in the first game. Southeast then went on a 7-1 run to take momentum back.
“We got a little down and a little lazy, and they came back and beat us,” Dalton coach Joey Wills said. “The second match was tight all the way through. You always want to beat your local rivals, but they worked hard and got the benefit that time.”
In the finale against Pickens, Southeast was up 9-1 before the Lady Dragons battled back to actually take a game-point advantage before falling in the first game.
Southeast’s Shelby McFarland had 34 kills and four aces to lead the Lady Raiders in the quad match. Emelee Oliver had 22 kills, Hannah Graham finished with 63 assists and 18 digs, Carli Ledford had 34 digs and Linda Duarte ended the night with five aces and 22 digs.
Dalton’s Mary Faith Erwin led the Lady Cats with 20 kills and seven aces, Susan Meinders had 17 kills and five aces and Viviana Fraire led the team with nine blocks.
“The Heritage win is where we shined tonight,” Wills said. “That loss in the beginning was a gut check and the result of that last game with Southeast. I told them they could fold up and go home, or rally, and they rallied.”
• Northwest Whitfield dropped a pair of non-area matches at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe, falling 25-13, 14-25, 14-16 to Ridgeland and 25-22, 14-25, 11-15 to LFO.
The Lady Bruins (1-10) got 13 kills and six aces in the tri-match from Alice Ann Barber, while Katie Kirk added 14 kills, Laura Stevens had six kills and four blocks. Mackensie Mastin (38 assists) and Shelby Douglas (27 digs) also made big contributions, Northwest coach Richard Taylor said.
“In stretches tonight we looked like we have the potential to be a very good team,” Taylor said. “Our problem was consistency. We didn’t play at that level all the time. But that’s just a function of putting six 10th graders out there.
“I was proud of them tonight. They’re definitely getting better, I told them I just wish it translated to some wins for them. But everyone’s still working hard and nobody’s giving up. It’s just a matter of time.”
In junior varsity action, Northwest improved to 5-0 by sweeping Ridgeland, 25-12, 25-8, and LFO, 25-17, 25-12.
• Christian Heritage swept Georgia Cumberland, 25-12, 25-15, 25-19, to improve on its early perfect record.
The Lady Lions (3-0, 2-0 GISA Region 2) got three aces, five kills and four digs from Katie Beth White and Savannah Roberson added three kills and four blocks.
• Murray County dropped matches with Ringgold, falling 25-12, 25-9 to the Lady Tigers, and Gilmer, with the Lady Bobcats winning 16-25, 25-21, 25-15 at Kenneth Ross Gymnasium in Chatsworth.
Mirely Cabral had six assists against Ringgold and 31 against Gilmer, while Michaela Hill had four aces and five kills against Gilmer.
Varsity cross country
Dalton’s boys and girls finished fifth and Northwest Whitfield’s teams were ninth at Heritage-Catoosa in this season’s first Chattanooga Cross Country League Meet.
The host Lady Generals won the girls meet, followed by the Home School League, Girls Preparatory School and Cumberland County.
Dalton’s points came from Bekah Houston (third place with a time of 22 minutes, 2 seconds), Carina Nieto (12th, 22:56), Amairany Vidana (31, 24:27), Paxton Plunkett (37th, 25:01) and Santa Iberra (51st, 26:20).
Northwest was ninth among more than 20 teams, coach Tom Sell said. Natalie Williams (25th, 24:27), Kayla Griffin (58th, 27:21), Shelly Hendricks (59th, 27:21), Morgan Ewton (61st, 28:02) and Lauren Smith (79th, 29:30) led the Lady Bruins.
In boys competition, Baylor was followed by Heritage, Signal Mountain and Soddy-Daisy.
The Cats’ scoring was supplied by Andrew O’Neill (29th, 19:30), Miguel Alcantar (41st, 19:54), Jonathan Hernandez (44th, 20:03), Anthony Hernandez (60th, 20:46) and Grant Snyder (60th, 20:46).
The Bruins, ninth in a field of more than 20 teams, Sell said, were led by Parker Cook (36th, 19:50), Brandon Harris (54th, 20:31), Brody Cook (57th, 20:38), Nathan Ward (71st, 21:04) and Conner Wilson (80th, 21:30).
Varsity softball
• Southeast 11, Murray County 1: Briana Sosebee’s two-run homer was part of a six-run fourth inning, and the Lady Raiders picked up a five-inning mercy-rule victory at home for their first win in region play.
Sosebee finished 2-for-3, as did Tavi Parris, who also had a double, and Ashley Strong, who drove in a run. Mallory Edgeman, Kirsten Smith and Chelsey Rivers each drove in a run for Southeast (4-3, 1-3 Region 7-3A), which was also able to take care of several Murray County errors, coach Jeff McDonald said.
“Briana is one of those kind of hitters who’s really powerful and she did well tonight,” McDonald said. “She made contact, and the one she hit, it was gone.
“Overall, this is probably the best we’ve hit all year. We’ve worked a lot on that since playing Heritage and Northwest and all those guys, and it really came through tonight.”
Kasey Headrick pitched all five innings for Southeast, allowing a pair of hits with no strikeouts and no walks. She gave up one unearned run in the fourth on the Lady Raiders’ only error, but got plenty of support — in addition to the six-run fourth, Southeast scored five runs in the first.
• Northwest 19, Rome 9: The Lady Bruins (5-5, 3-2 Region 7-4A) scored five runs in two separate innings — the fourth and fifth — and held off a Rome surge keyed by some defensive miscues in the sixth inning.
“We finally swung the bats well,” Lady Bruins coach Shane Ramsey said. “We needed this. We still have some things to work on defensively. Especially with a big game coming up (on Thursday at Cass).”
Mykeah Johnson went 4-for-6 with three RBIs in the road win, while Lauren Stepp had a pair of hits and drove in three runs. Ashley Conner, Bayli Cruse and Amy Shampo each had three hits.
Emily Boyd had two strikeouts in two innings and allowed one hit. Allison Manis pitched five innings, allowing six hits and striking out two.
“We want to live in the moment,” Ramsey said. “But when the moment is over, good or bad, we need to move on. Once we understand that, we’ll be all right.”
• LaFayette 4, Dalton 0: The Lady Cats committed six errors to help the Lady Ramblers in LaFayette.
Allie Blackwood took the loss in the circle for Dalton (1-5, 1-2 in 7-3A), striking out six and allowing four hits — only two of LaFayette’s runs were earned.
Middle school football
• Baylor 6, Dalton seventh 6: Dalton’s defense played well for the second straight game to start the season, but the Cougars (0-0-2) had a touchdown pass called back in the final seconds of the fourth quarter on a holding penalty and had to settle for a tie against their visitors from Chattanooga at Harmon Field.
Baylor led 6-0 at halftime after a 28-yard touchdown run in the second quarter — Dalton’s David Rockholt knocked down the two-point conversion pass at the line — but the Cougars tied in the third on Josh Moreno’s 55-yard interception return.
Dalton, which tied Rome by the same score last Thursday, also got a fumble recovery from Drake McCowan.
“Our defense is playing really well right now,” Cougars coach Jeff Gazaway said.
Middle school softball
• Gladden 5, Valley Point 3: Whitney Gribble had a two-run single and Ashlee Strong added another run-scoring hit as the Lady Warriors scored four runs in the bottom of the fifth inning to top the Lady Green Waves.
Gribble was also the winning pitcher for Gladden (2-1), striking out seven batters, walking none and yielded six hits over seven innings. She added an RBI double at the plate.
Aubrie Osborne added two hits for the Lady Warriors.
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