4 local teams open state volleyball tourney with wins

Hamilton County's Class A and Class AA volleyball teams in this year's high school state tournament went 4-0 on Wednesday in opening-round action at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro.

Class A teams Signal Mountain and Boyd-Buchanan and Class AA teams Chattanooga Christian and Red Bank each won their matches 3-0.

Class AAA Ooltewah and Division II-AA Baylor suffered 3-2 losses in their first matches of the day. Baylor recovered and beat Ensworth 3-2 at Blackman High School.

Houston beat Ooltewah 25-18, 27-25, 16-25, 27-29, 17-15. The Lady Owls then played Siegel in a late match.

* Class A: Signal Mountain defeated Summertown 25-21, 25-21, 25-15. Boyd-Buchanan beat Madison 25-12, 25-13, 25-6.

Boyd-Buchanan (36-10) will play Loretto (34-10) this morning at 10 EDT and Signal Mountain (39-10) plays Trinity Christian (21-14) at 11:30 at MTSU.

The Lady Bucs were without two starters because of a violation of team rules, but there wasn't much effect because the team totaled 31 aces. Five players served at least five, led by Maggie Brown's seven.

Stephanie Silvers' eight kills paced the victory, as did Rachel Harper's 11 digs. Freshman Jessica Kirk, who had gotten some playing time during the District 5 tournament, got a spot start and had six aces to go with a team-high 16 assists.

"We kind of served them off the court, which was nice because we weren't playing with all six of our girls," Boyd-Buchanan coach Amber Nolen said. "Jessica stepped up again. She was called for a double hit, but that was about the only thing she didn't do well. We just didn't get a hand on the ball a lot. We served at them and they made a lot of errors on their side of the net."

Callie Hildebrand paced Signal Mountain with 16 kills and three aces. Sydni Abbajay contributed 11 kills and matched Allie Jennings with 11 digs. Georgia Paturalski set 32 assists.

* Class AA: Chattanooga Christian beat Dyersburg 25-8, 25-16, 25-18. Red Bank defeated South Greene 25-11, 25-14, 25-12.

CCS (30-13) faces Christ Presbyterian Academy (33-5) today at 10 a.m. EDT and Red Bank (52-9) plays Page (43-8) at 11:30 at MTSU.

Leaders for the Lady Chargers were Taylor Snipes with 15 kills, Alex Yandel with six blocks, Courtney Hitchcock with 26 digs and Alex Givens with 38 assists and five aces.

Kalyn Helton led Red Bank with 16 kills and 18 digs. Courtney Lawson led the setting with 19 assists and chipped in with nine kills. Amy Metcalf also reached double figures in digs and assists.

* Division II-AA: Baylor defeated Ensworth 25-23, 18-25, 21-25, 25-22, 15-10 and will play either St. Benedict or Father Ryan tonight at MTSU at 8:30 EDT. St. Benedict edged the Lady Red Raiders 3-2 in an opening round match with game scores of 25-22, 22-25, 22-25, 25-21, 19-17.