Soddy-Daisy, Bradley, Ooltewah win in 5-AAA first round

Soddy-Daisy's Cameren Swafford leaps into the air and celebrates with Kyleigh Ward (2) upon defeating East Hamilton in the first round of the District 5-AAA volleyball tournament Monday at Walker Valley.
Soddy-Daisy's Cameren Swafford leaps into the air and celebrates with Kyleigh Ward (2) upon defeating East Hamilton in the first round of the District 5-AAA volleyball tournament Monday at Walker Valley.
photo The Soddy-Daisy volleyball coach Libby Peigen encourages her team during the first round District 5-AAA match against East Hamilton on Monday at Walker Valley.
photo East Hamilton volleyball coach Brian Wood directs his team on Monday during the first round District 5-AAA match with Soddy-Daisy at Walker Valley.
photo The Soddy-Daisy volleyball coach Libby Peigen talks with her team during a timeout in the first round District 5-AAA match against East Hamilton on Monday at Walker Valley.

CLEVELAND, Tenn. - Soddy-Daisy volleyball coach Libby Peigen liked a quote she saw while watching football games on television this past weekend. She reinforced it to her team Monday during a timeout in the fourth set of the Lady Trojans' opening-round match against East Hamilton in the District 5-AAA high school tournament at Walker Valley.

"The quote is, 'Champions figure out a way to win games like this,'" Peigen said. "It is true. Just because you're losing doesn't mean you have lost."

Fifth-seeded Soddy-Daisy won the match 3-1, outscoring the fourth-seeded Lady Hurricanes 14-4 in the final set after the pivotal timeout with the Lady Trojans trailing by five. Set scores were 25-18, 18-25, 25-20, 25-20.

The tournament continues today with Soddy-Daisy (22-30) facing top-seeded Cleveland at 5 p.m. Third-seeded Walker Valley, which beat Bradley Central on Monday, and second-seeded Ooltewah, which defeated McMinn County, play at 6:30. Wednesday's championship match is set for 6.

Soddy-Daisy, which split with the Lady 'Canes during the district regular season, led the rest of the first set after going ahead 6-5. The Lady Trojans never led in the second but got within 19-18 before East Hamilton scored the last six points.

The third set was close all the way until Soddy-Daisy made a late push. The Lady 'Canes went ahead 6-5 in the fourth and maintained the advantage until the Lady Trojans caught them at 18 on the way to finishing it out.

"It's been a seasonlong goal trying to play mentally tough," Peigen said. "I thought we did that in that game. The second game we kind of let down. But then we responded after being down in the fourth game. That's been the big goal this season, responding mentally, and now we stay alive."

Among Soddy-Daisy's leaders were Cameren Swafford with 16 kills, Kylie Brincks with 11 digs and Kirstie Williams with 32 assists.

* Walker Valley 3, Bradley Central 0: Set scores were 25-18, 25-14, 25-13.

Walker Valley coach Judy Pruett said it was a little difficult trying to balance preparation with hosting the tournament but felt her team had a good practice Sunday.

"We tried working on serving," Pruett said. "We'd been missing a ton of them. We missed some in the first game tonight, but I thought we served better as the match got longer. Aly Grace Lemons had a couple of aces in a big, long serving run. We focused a lot on serving and serve-receiving. That's two of our weak points. I was proud of the girls. They did well."

Walker Valley (15-10) got 12 kills and 12 digs from Kaley Walker. Hannah Moore was the assists leader with 17.

* Ooltewah 3, McMinn County 0: Set scores were 25-4, 25-6, 25-18.

The Lady Owls' Sidney Killingsworth started the match by putting down one of her seven kills. That began an 8-0 run, and Ooltewah (32-15) was off and running.

"Last time we played McMinn we missed 21 serves, so we really worked on getting our serves in," Ooltewah coach Elaine Peigen said. "We did a better job of serving and keeping them in. We also have a lot of unforced errors sometimes. We didn't have many of those."

Ooltewah's other leaders included Mabry Carpenter with eight digs and Macy Milliken with 16 assists. Jadyn Rashcke led with five aces.

Contact Kelley Smiddie at ksmiddie@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6653. Follow him at twitter.com@KelleySmiddie.

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