Lady Hornets sweep Wellston to advance to district semis

COAL GROVE — Through two sets, the top-seeded Coal Grove Lady Hornets showed their dominance and then held off a tough third by the Wellston Lady Rockets to get the 3-0 sweep and win their opening match of the Ohio Division 5 volleyball tournament.

"We did good the first two sets. We were aggressive. we had good serves and we moved our feet," said Coal Grove coach Jordan Hannan. "The third set not so much, but when we're aggressive we play. But give credit to (Wellston), they're a scrappy team."

Coal Grove improved their record to 16-5 overall and move on to the district semifinals where they will face No. 8 seed Westfall at Waverly High School on Monday at 6:00 p.m.

Now with a tournament under their belt, Hannan said her team is excited to advance and move onto the next round.

"The girls are very excited. They're ready to see what they can do."

Set One

Coal Grove came out strong in the first set rolling to an 18-6 lead following back-to-back aces from Jenna Anson. The front line of the Lady Rockets helped Wellston go on a short 5-1 scoring run to cut into the lead.

But Coal Grove would shut down the run and finish off the set with a pair of kills from Anson and an ace from Kaitlin Hall put the Lady Hornets up 1-0.

Set Two

Coal Grove continued to roll along in the second set behind the serving of Karli Shore. After a kill from Anson, Shore went on to serve up 6-straight aces to expand the Lady Hornets lead to 10-3. Shore later added another ace in her service run and Anson had a stuff block to make it 14-3.

Trailing 18-7, Wellston would get another short scoring run to cut into the lead. Reece Karr would have a pair of kills and Macy Mantell would add another to help make the score 19-12.

Again, the Lady Hornets could close out the set in strong fashion. Emma Lively had a kill and served up an ace during 6-2 run to close things out. Then Kasey Vanderhoof finished things off with an ace for the final point to give the Lady Hornets the second set and go for match point.

Set Three

The third set brought out the best in both teams as both traded leads through the first half of the set.

One of the best sequences of the night came when Wellston's Abrielle Weese attempted a spike and the ball deflected sideways out of play. But Anson was able to make a diving play out of bounds to dig the ball back into play and allowed Coal Grove to return it back over the net for the point and go up 15-12.

Wellston would eventually make a late scoring run to take a 19-18 lead following Brittany Barnett's ace. But from that point on, the Lady Hornets would close out the set with a 7-2 scoring run.

Both Hall and Lively had aces during the run and Klara Klaiber served up the final point with an ace for the 3-0 match win.

Wellston 12 18 21

Coal Grove 25 25 25

Coal Grove wins match 3-0

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