There was no questioning whether Baylor's volleyball team was ready to play its TSSAA Division II-AA state quarterfinal Saturday at Baylor. Scoring the first 11 points against Hutchison removed all doubt of that.
And as the match progressed, so too did the Lady Red Raiders, who not only never trailed the Sting but never were tied on the way to winning 3-0. Set scores were 25-10, 25-16, 25-10.
Baylor (39-5) advances to the state tournament for a ninth consecutive year and will play its opening match against Father Ryan, which edged St. Benedict 3-2 in another of Saturday's quarterfinals. The state tournament runs Tuesday through Thursday in Murfreesboro.
"We all came in thinking about the game and what it meant," said Ally Craig, who led the hitting with 12 kills. "Everybody did their part today. We're all really excited."
With the flip of her left hand, setter Sarah Sumida put down a kill for the match's first point, and behind the serve of Denver Rogers, the Lady Raiders were off and running.
"There's no explaining how we came out that on fire, but I'm excited that we did," Baylor coach Sarah Lail said. "We knew their middles were their strength, as far as hitting, so we focused our blocking on them. We knew if we shut them down in the beginning it would make it harder for them to get into something normal."
The only stretch that remotely resembled a charge by Hutchison was in the second set when it was down 13-6 and rallied to within 14-10, prompting Lail to call what would be the only timeout she would use in the match. The Lady Raiders, who had a 7-0 run to start the third set, came out of that timeout by scoring the next five points.
"The girls are playing really, really well right now," Lail said. "I'm really excited about the opportunity that's ahead of us."
With Sumida spreading the sets around for 38 assists, the Lady Raiders in addition to Craig's total got eight kills each from Rogers and Zoe Ubamadu. Ubamadu also had six blocks.
Elizabeth Case was Baylor's digs leader with 11. Hayden Barton served three aces.