Beating anyone three times in a season, in any sport, is hard to do. The Bryant Lady Hornets freshman volleyball was trying to get that done against the Conway Blue Lady Cats in the first round of the Central Arkansas Junior High Conference tournament on Saturday morning at the Bryant High School gym.
But the Lady Cats spoiled their plans. Bryant absorbed a season-ending 13-25, 13-25 loss. Conway Blue advanced to play regular-season champion Benton in the second round and became the Lady Panthers’ second victim as they went on to win the tourney title as well.
“Conway Blue came ready to play after losing to us during conference play,” said Bryant coach Lawrence Jefferson. “We struggled with serve receive giving them 19 points in the match on their serve. We also had 12 dig errors on their hits. We had difficulty getting good passes all match and when we did we struggled to get good sets and good hits. We only had 6 kills for the match while committing 11 hitting errors.
“The positive side of the match came on our serve with only four serving errors for the match with four aces,” he noted.
Grace Camferdam had two of the kills. Cali Rogers, Truli Bates, Sophie Kennedy and Joely Calhoun each had one. Bates also had two blocks. Camille Rawls added one.
Meredith Medford let the team with three aces to go with two assists. Erin Thompson had an ace as well. She and Ashley Davis were good on six serves apiece.
Defensively, Cora Edwards, Grace Sams and Thompson had five digs each.
“For the season, we compiled a 12-11 record while finishing fifth in the 10-team CAJH conference,” noted Jefferson who was in his first year coaching the team. “I am proud of how the girls have grown together over the season. It is difficult to bring two separate middle schools teams together in a short amount of time. They improved every day in practice and throughout the season. They worked hard all season. I see a really good high school team coming for Bryant if they continue to improve like they did this season. They always worked hard in practice and the games. They were a lot of fun this season.
“I would also like to thank the parents of the girls for being so supportive of the team and following the team all over central Arkansas,” he concluded. “We always had a good supporting fan base at all our matches. We would not have been successful without the great support of the parents and the Bryant community.”
Season leaders
Kills: Grace Sams (87), Truli Bates (51), Grace Camferdam (42), Casey Welch (33), Camille Rawles (32), and Ivory Russ (28).
Blocks: Truli Bates (75), Casey Welch (14),
Assists: Lexi Brown (109), Kalina Weaver (740, Meredith Medford (51)
Digs: Grace Sams (245), Kiarra Beard (211), Erin Thompson (209), Cora Edwards (121), & Ashley Davis (76).
Aces: Grace Sams (29), Kiarra Beard (24), Lexi Brown (20), Erin Thompson (19), Meredith Medford (16), Cora Edwards (15)
