VALDOSTA – Lowndes and Valdosta volleyball tipped off region play in a three-team tournament at Lowndes High School Thursday night.

Lowndes picked up a sweep of Valdosta and Colquitt, while Valdosta earned a split with a 2-0 win against Colquitt before falling to Lowndes 2-0 in the nightcap.

In the nightcap against the Wildcats, the Vikings (15-4) took the first set 25-15. In a tight second set, it looked like the ‘Cats would force a third set, but the Vikings edged their rivals out 25-23 to take the match.

Lowndes head coach Autumn Bell admits she felt her team let up a bit in the second set before pulling out the match.

“The crosstown rivalry is just an incredible atmosphere in itself,” Bell said. “Now that they’re in our region, it just heightens that even more. I think it makes it more exciting as far as challenges for us.

“I know it’s controlling our emotions and playing our game – we talk about that all the time. Play our speed and play our game. I think we did that tonight. Did we let up a little bit? Absolutely, but we have some things to work on and that’s normal.”

Kaylan McConnehead led the Vikings with seven kills in 15 attempts along with four blocks. Mary Alison Eubanks added five kills while Annabell Kerrigan, Otaifo Esenabhalu and Milly Prince had three kills each. Prince added a team-high 11 digs in the win.

Keona Martin had four kills in eight attempts for Valdosta. Fiora Shen led the team with 12 digs while Mason Holtzclaw added 7 digs. Kate Woodward and Olivia Shen had five assists each in the loss.

“Well, these games are always hard,” Valdosta head volleyball coach Anna McCall said. “There’s always a lot of preparation. There’s a lot of emotions. There’s a lot of, you know, rivalry so these are always big. There’s always nerves in the beginning, but the first set, we just really didn’t wake up like we needed to and then we started doing better towards the end of the first and came out in the second and went toe-to-toe with them.

“They picked up their game, they got better. Our passing in the beginning was not where we wanted it to be and our hitting, but it got better. I was really praying hard for a third set to just keep playing because these are always good games and it’s good for players, parents, the city of Valdosta to have good games like this. We are actually getting closer and closer to closing that gap between us and the northern part of Georgia.”

The ‘Cats defeated Colquitt 2-0, winning the first set 25-19 and closing out the match with a 25-22 decision.

Holtzclaw and Keona Martin had four kills each while Analei Barrett and Nalani Martin had three kills each with Martin leading the team with three blocks. Woodward had an ace, two kills, five assists and five digs. Olivia Shen led the team with 14 assists while Holtzclaw added seven digs and Fiora Shen contributed 12 digs in the win.

The Vikings defeated Colquitt 2-0 (25-20, 25-13) behind the work of McConnehead and Kerrigan.

McConnehead led the team with seven kills while Kerrigan added six of her own. Esenabhalu and Eubanks added four each.

Prince had 13 digs in the win.

“This year, we have more teams in our region so region isn’t just four teams. We’re not all going to the playoffs, we’re not all guaranteed a spot, so that’s something we talked about early on,” Bell said. “Our goal is to repeat what we did last year, but to get there, there’s definitely steps that are involved. Tonight, we took a great step. Our job is not done yet. We still have work to do and I think that speaks for itself.”

UP NEXT

Lowndes: Visits Columbia for a non-region matchup Tuesday at 5 p.m.

Valdosta: Visits Sherwood Christian for non-region action Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.