Jim Schermerhorn, Notre Dame coachNotre Dame and Chattanooga Christian again are on a collision course to play their customary third soccer match of the season about this time of year.
The Lady Irish defeated Smith County 6-1 and the Chargers beat Murfreesboro's Central Magnet 6-0 in Tuesday's Region 4-A/AA semifinals.
Notre Dame and CCS played a 1-1 match during the regular season and the Irish won 1-0 last week in the District 7 final. The teams will play Thursday for the region championship at Notre Dame at 7 p.m. The winner will host a sectional match Saturday and the other will travel.
Notre Dame coach Jim Schermerhorn said he was pleased with how things worked out in the early going against Smith County. Less than 14 minutes into the match his Lady Irish led 4-0 with each goal coming from a different player.
Two more Notre Dame players contributed goals before halftime. Emma Higgins, Erin Freeman, Liz Ciabattone, Blair Barker, Gabby Mullin and Austin Nelson were the goal scorers.
Courtney Boyd finished with two assists. Neither team scored in the second half.
"We rotated a lot of people in," Schermerhorn said. "This is going to be a three-game week for us with one against CCS, and Saturday we see who goes to the state tournament. Everybody has got a bunch of injuries at this point. You want to be rested and healthy the best you can."
Hannah Henry had two goals for CCS and Ashley Simmons and Kruesi Brock had a goal and an assist each. Ellie Henry and Allie Sullivan had the other goals.
In Region 3-A/AA, McMinn Central got two goals and assist from Ashton Robinson and beat Arts & Sciences 4-2 at Englewood. Sydney Miller added a goal and an assist and Ashly Scapellato had the other goal.
Sterling Tindell and Ashley McGee scored for CSAS.
Sonoraville, Southeast win
Sixth-ranked Sonoraville is advancing to the third round of the Georgia Class AAA state volleyball playoffs for the first time after hosting and defeating Beach 3-0 on Tuesday. Set scores were 25-14, 25-4, 25-12.
Southeast Whitfield, second-ranked in Class AAAA, played at home and beat 10th-ranked Jonesboro 3-1 by set scores of 25-15, 18-25, 25-19, 25-20.
The state organization's seeding committee will meet today and determine opponents and locations for the next round of matches Saturday.
Carrie Cheeks led Sonoraville (38-9) with 15 kills and Nikki Eitutis led with 21 digs. Bre Horner was the assists leader with 19, and she and Delaney Bell served three aces each. Kristi Vaughn's all-around performance included nine kills, 14 assists and nine digs.
Setter Hannah Graham sparked Southeast, not only with her totals of 38 assists, 29 digs, three kills and three aces, but with one point that coach Jake Dickey called a momentum-shifter. It came in the third set after the Lady Raiders had fallen behind 7-1, then rallied to take a 13-11 lead.
A long rally ensued and Dickey said Graham "came out of nowhere" to keep a ball off the floor and Southeast ended up winning the point, the set and ultimately the match.
"They were definitely the more athletic team," Dickey said. "They have a lot of the same girls who went to the final four in basketball last year.
"That point was huge in that it showed them our girls weren't going to give up. That got us on a roll, got us fired up and got the crowd going."
Megan Collins ended up with 19 kills and 27 digs in the victory. Dickey praised the play of freshman Angie Purkey, who made 11 digs and got 11 of 12 serves in.