Self-inflicted errors were prevalent in Tuesday's District 5-AAA volleyball match at Ooltewah. Then again, in fairness to the Lady Owls and East Hamilton, the TSSAA season is two days old.
Ooltewah made more mistakes than coach Elaine Peigen wanted to see, but the Lady Hurricanes made more than her Lady Owls, who came away with a 3-0 victory. Set scores were 25-21, 25-17, 25-14.
"I'm glad to get our first district win under our belt, but we've got a long way to go before postseason," said Peigen, who noted that players receiving serves that would've landed out of bounds and committing net violations were her team's biggest problems. "I find myself fussing quite a bit."
The game scores are a good illustration of Ooltewah's improvement, or East Hamilton's regression, throughout the course of the match. The Lady 'Canes' largest lead in the match was 4-2 in the first set. They never led in the second or third sets.
"We made a lot of mistakes," East Hamilton coach Kristy Lenoir said. "Overall we're a pretty young team. At times tonight we had three eighth-graders on the floor. That's part of it. Part of it is taking ownership of our play."
Ooltewah (2-0, 1-0) took advantage of several serving and hitting errors by East Hamilton but also hit well enough to register 34 kills compared to the Lady 'Canes' 15. The Lady Owls also served 10 aces, led by Alex Biro's four. Three came in succession late in the third set.
Biro also had seven kills in support of the eight each by Sidney Killingsworth and Hannah Henderson. Hanna Matthews totaled 30 assists.
"Offensively I thought Alex and Hanna clicked," Peigen said. "Also Hannah Henderson stepped up with some kills. It's all going to be good. We've just got to keep working."
Summer Williams was the Lady Owls' digs leader with 11, and she added three aces.
Senior Emma Lenoir was the hitting leader for East Hamilton (1-1, 0-1) with nine kills. Her next-closest teammate in kills was eighth-grader Madison Hayes with three. Lenoir also had two of the Lady 'Canes' five aces.
Tori Harris totaled eight assists before coming out of the match during the third set after taking a spill and hitting her head. Somer Batten's six digs were high for East Hamilton, which in addition to losing by double digits in the third set trailed by as many as 12 points in the second set.
"We don't have a sense of urgency when it comes to getting the job done now, not 10 points from now," Coach Lenoir said. "We've got a lot of work to do."
Contact Kelley Smiddie at sports@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/KelleySmiddie.