Wednesday, Dec. 05, 2012

Faith ousted from playoffs by Richards

The Faith Middle School Lady Warriors came up one point short of the school’s first volleyball playoff victory, but a hard serve for match point by Deidra Ginnie landed just inches out of bounds Nov. 27 against Richards Middle School. The game was played at Arnold Magnet Academy.

The serve for match point instead went back to Richards, and into the hands of the Lady Cherokees’ best server, Emily McCormick.

Tied at 16-16, McCormick got the two points necessary to get the win, (23-25, 25-10, 18-16)and Richards moved on to play Arnold while ending the Lady Warriors’ season. “We couldn’t be prouder of them,” Faith head coach Adrianna Bivens said. “This is as far as we’ve ever gone. We were just happy to make it to the playoffs.”

McCormick and teammate La-Jada Cashe gave dominant performances for the Lady Cherokees, combining for seven aces and six kills.

After Faith took a tight first set, Richards found holes in the Lady Warrior’s defense in the second set and scored 11 straight points off the serves of McCormick.

“They were attacking the backline and we weren’t back there,” Bivens said. “We had to adjust … and they stopped doing that in the third set. Richards has some hard hitters who can hit that backline and if you’re not ready all the time, they’ll get you.”

Bivens said Faith made the right adjustments in the third set and had Richards on the ropes. The Lady Warriors jumped out to an 11-6 lead before Cashe reeled off three straight aces. From there, it was back-and-forth before Ginnie had the chance to seal the match with her team ahead 16-15.

“She has some pressure issues when it comes to serving,” Bivens said. “She’s told us we can’t even look at her when she serves. She has to have that focus.

“I would have rather had her just get it over the net. We have some girls who can target serve … we can usually tell them to find that hole and go for it. Deidra can when she’s on.”

The volleyball team was the first to go to a playoff game since the school’s athletic program merged into the Muscogee School District. It was also the team that returned the most players from it’s first year, and Bivens said she hopes that will be the case next year.

“It’s a great thing for the program,” she said. “I think it’s just going to build and build going forward.”