VOLLEYBALL: Haysi beats Hurley in BDD tournament

BY LLOYD COMBS
Sprorts Correspondent
BIRCHLEAF, Va. — Like any young team in a rebuilding year, Haysi has faced its share of adversity this season, but nothing like Monday’s Black Diamond District play-in match.

The Tigers swept Hurley, 3-0, to advance to the semifinals of the BDD volleyball tournament.

Haysi scored the first seven points of the match and went on to take a 25-11, 25-11, 25-14 victory. The Tigers will meet regular-season champion Council in Thursday’s semifinal nightcap at Twin Valley.

Haysi (7-12) won despite the absence of coach Karen Fleming, who was home with pneumonia, and despite a death in the family of a key Haysi player. Senior Kristen Kiser’s aunt, her mom’s sister, passed away Monday morning.

“It was tough, but my mom wanted me to play,” said Kiser, who helped lead the way for the Lady Tigers with nine aces among 11 service points, six assists and five kills.
“We missed coach Fleming, she always brings a lot of energy and gets us pumped up and ready to play. [Assistant] coach [Ben] Collins did a wonderful job, though, doing
everything the way coach Fleming wants it done.”

Brittany Roark set the tone for Haysi early, starting the match by getting in seven consecutive serves. She also finished it well, nailing back-to-back aces to end the match.

“We did a good job tonight getting our serves in,” Collins said. “That’s what we wanted to do, get our serves in early, so we can play our game.
“Brittany and Kristen both did a good job. That’s one thing we’ve improved on this season, our service game.”

Roark finished with 20 service points and contributed 10 assists. Traci Edwards added six kills and Holly Bowman had five kills for the fourth-seeded Tigers.

Hurley (8-12) never seemed to recover from Haysi’s 7-0 start in game one. The Rebels led just once the entire night, at 2-1 in the second set.

Haysi then rallied to take a 15-6 lead in that set, and opened the third and final set on a 13-2 run.

“We hit a bad stretch in the middle of the season, and we’ve not been able to recover from it,” Hurley coach Brian Davis said. “We were never really in tonight’s match.”

Candie Justus had three kills for Hurley. No one had more than three service points for the Lady Rebels.

Host Twin Valley and Honaker will open BDD semifinal play at 6 p.m. on Thursday. The BDD finals are Saturday at 6 p.m.