One of the toughest challenges for a defense in any sport is an attack or a play the players don’t see coming.
Through a 17-game win streak to begin the season, the Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences volleyball team believes it has a major mismatch for their opposition either way.
Surrounding a rock-solid sophomore duo in libero Olivia Coleman and setter Addison Ruder are five strong hitters capable of producing damage for Class A’s fast rising Lady Patriots. Those five include senior right side hitter Kendall Townsend, junior middle blocker Gracie Lallier, sophomore outside hitter Emma Schnitzer, freshmen outside Amanda Gardner and middle Savannah Moore.
“Practice is a lot of fun because we split up our top two hitters and they go at each other,” 14th year head CSAS volleyball coach Brandon Lowry said. “It’s a dogfight when they go at it. This team truly has the potential to be the best in school history and they can be that for years to come because they are so young and talented.”
Despite a youthful roster with just two seniors — which includes a quality backup hitter in Michelle Bulls — CSAS has eight players who have club volleyball experience. The Lady Patriots, who fell one win short of making the Elite Eight last season, have won 45 of their 46 sets this season. Their lone set loss came in the Hixson Invitational to Walker Valley, who they ended up taking the next four sets from to win the title.
“Our team is young, but we have a lot of girls with experience who have played club volleyball or started playing volleyball well before even middle school,” said sophomore Emma Schnitzer, whose career-high in kills is 15 for a match. We came up just short of state last year, but we are even scarier now. We are really unified and work extremely hard. Kendall helps bring us all together and we all push one another to be better every day.”
The last public Hamilton County volleyball program to win a state championship was Signal Mountain in 2010. With a loaded roster for the next several seasons, CSAS hopes to end that streak either this season or very soon.
“Sale Creek has really set the bar for Chattanooga in Class A the last 15 years,” Coach Lowry said. “We wouldn’t see them until we both make it to state. Our girls are super talented and put in a ton of hard work. They have a chance to do something special. I am excited to see how they battle together as we start seeing tougher competition starting next week with Boyd Buchanan.”
Contact Patrick MacCoon at pmaccoon@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @PMacCoon.