by Rusty Ellis
The Cookeville Lady Cavs earned a 3-0 sweep over non-district foe Warren County on Monday night.
The visitors got the match off to a good start, as the Lady Pioneers took an early 5-1 lead. The Lady Cavs answered back with a run to tie the match at 5-5, and even after Warren took a slim lead, Cookeville took a 10-8 lead thanks to an Alanah Craig ace. After an attack error and another Craig ace, Cookeville built the lead up to 12-8, and proceeded to go on a 7-2 run to push the advantage to 19-10.
From there, the Lady Cavs closed out the first set with a 25-11 victory.
The second set saw a back-and-forth start, as Cookeville finally spread the lead out with a 14-11 advantage after a block by Craig. She then recorded kills on three straight rallies to push the lead to 17-11, as the Lady Cavs rolled from there for the 25-13 victory.
Cookeville kept that momentum going with a Bethany Phillips ace to open the third set, and built a five-point lead at 11-6. A Phillips kill pushed the lead to six and forced a Warren timeout, and Craig added another ace out of the break to push it to 13-6. From there, Cookeville coasted to the 3-0 win with a 25-8 victory in the third set.
CHS head coach Staci Wiegand thought there was a lot of progress from her team on Monday night, citing how they played as a team after losing one of their players to injury over the weekend.
“It took down one of our middle hitters, so we had to pull up some girls from JV, and they really played well for us,” Wiegand said. “Our starters played really well with the new girls, and they played together, most importantly.”
With a few more weeks left in the regular season before the district tournament, most teams are looking to hit their stride around this time so they can get rolling heading into the postseason.
For Wiegand, she feels like she’s seen constant growth from her team from the start of the season to now.
“We really take full advantage of every set, and every chance at offense,” Wiegand said. “I feel like we’ve always been good at that, but we’re still getting better…overall communication has also been a real sought-after skill that we’re trying to improve on, and I saw that tonight.”
The Lady Cavs will jump right back into district play on Tuesday when they host Smyrna.
