By Thomas Sellers Jr.
TRA’s Haley Ramsey slaps down a spike over two IC players. TRA libero Joze Smith volleys the ball during a contest against IC in the TRA Gymnasium last week.
The challenge for Wendy Porter’s Tipton-Rosemark Academy Lady Rebels last Tuesday was to outplay the TRA Lady Rebels. As the Immaculate Conception Lady Wildcats came to town, Porter wanted her team to take the TRA Gymnasium court focused on improving and playing at their level. “Sometimes, we don’t always play our best,” she acknowledged. “That was our challenge tonight to play our best. I feel like for one of the first times ever, they came out and did that. “Looking at past seasons and how we did with different levels of competitions, they brought their A-game tonight for the most part,” Porter added. “We were a little rusty there on serves at one part. We then picked it back up.” The Lady Rebels answered Porter’s challenge and played consistent enough to win 25-10, 25-8 and 25-5 over the Lady Wildcats. “We’ve started off pretty strong,” Porter said. “We’ve only loss outside of tournaments once. We’re 7-1. We’ve got some talent out there. They’re moving a lot better. They’re starting to mesh as a team. It started off pretty good as a team. We haven’t had any problems with that. It’s just getting them to swing those arms a little faster.” Some of the Lady Rebels swinging fast and hard against IC were Haley Ramsey, Bethany Crane, Kallie Alexander, Sam Hopper and Mary Leslie Cranford. The TRA players using serving to score points were Joze Smith, Maggie Stephens and Rachel Woelm. In the opening set TRA jumped ahead 9-2 behind spikes from Ramsey and Hopper. An ace by Neely Turner made the score 9-2. The Lady Rebels reached a 10-point lead when Stephens served up an ace to make the score 16-6. Later in the set Cranford slapped down a kill to make the tally 21-10. Woelm closed out the first set with a pair of aces to win 25-10. The scoreboard read 10-2 early in the second set in favor of TRA. After Woelm got things started with three aces, Turner got hot behind the service line helping the Lady Rebels jump ahead by 8 points. TRA seized control of the set at the net with the play of Alexander, Hopper and Ramsey. Alexander scored on a pair of spikes. Hopper’s kill made the score 16-6. Ramsey scored in a variety of ways with spikes, tips and her serves. Back-to-back aces from Ramsey made the tally 18-6. TRA finally reached 20 when Crane scored on a spike to make the tally 20-7. The Lady Rebels outscored IC 5-1 down the stretch to win the second set. The third set was all TRA when Alexander, Ramsey and Hopper protected the serving of Woelm to jump ahead 9-1. The Lady Wildcats barely solved the serving of Woelm. When IC managed to return the ball, the trio at the net scored on blocks and kills. TRA cruised to a 25-5 win in the third set and improved to 7-1 outside of tournament play this season. “August was good,” Porter said. “We had a lot of good things and saw a lot of good things from all areas of the court.
“I would like to see a little bit more consistency, accuracy from our passes,” she concluded. “We have great passers. But that’s the key component to making everything else work. Sets are there. Hitters are there. If we can get those perfect passes, the more the merrier.”
