Lady Pats start fast

Lady Pats start fast

Marion hosts jamboree, goes 3- 0

Sports Editor It wasn’t a state tournament game.

It wasn’t even a regular season contest.

But to almost anyone in attendance at Marion Middle School Gym last night, it likely felt like a postseason atmosphere.

The Marion volleyball team was hosting its annual pre-season jamboree, a round-robin that featured quality programs such as Brookland, Nettleton and defending Class 5A state champion Valley View.

For its trouble, Marion topped all three of its opponents, playing each foe in a one-set sprint to 25 points.

The Lady Pats open their 2016 regular season on Tuesday night on the road against Greene County Tech.

Marion beat Brookland 25-16 in the opening set, before nipping Nettleton 25-14 in their second outing and ended the night by vanquishing Valley View 25-12 in a much-anticipated finale that will be reprised in during district play when each school will play each home-and-away.

It was the first time that Marion had played since winning the 2015 Class 6A state championship on October 31.

“I felt like with it being our first time playing at home this season and on top of that, it was the first time we’d played someone else since team camp, I thought all of that played a role and maybe we actually had some jitters?” said Marion head coach Lisa Beasley after the match. “I thought once we got past that, we got rolling a little bit, and that was the best part for me.”

Brookland scored the first two points of their set with Marion and though the Lady Pats would push ahead 10-4, the visitors reeling off four straight points to stick within 10-8.

That’s when senior Maggie Aureli teamed up with Gabi Catt before posting a kill to push her squad ahead 12-4.

Later on, senior Ally Bramucci came up with a kill and a block on consecutive points to give Marion a 17-11 lead, and force a Brookland timeout.

The stoppage did little to slow Bramucci down as Marion’s number 5 came up with four more kills, two assists and another block in the 25-16 victory against Brookland.

“Our defense stepped up, we didn’t make a lot of errors, and I thought that was the big difference,” said Beasley of her team’s adjustments against the Lady Berkatz.

The second set against Nettleton was tuck-and-go for a spell, as well. Marion led 5-3 before ripping off seven consecutive points for a 12-3 advantage.

Perhaps more impressively than the seven straight tallies themselves was the manner in which Marion posted them.

Included was an acrobatic dig from senior Hope Phipps that looked as though it would certainly fall for a Nettleton point, an Annalee Parker kill following a set from Bramucci, a Sara Betts ace, an Aureli block and a kill from Betts.

“There’s not a person on the floor that can’t do just about everything,” Beasley said of her team’s diverse scoring possibilities. “I just always tell them in the huddle, ‘Just do what you do,’ when we do what we do, we look pretty good.”

Marion had one final run left in it and was highlighted by a Phipps ace, a block from Gabi Catt and a block from Bramucci that got the Lady Pats home with a 2514 win.

While the first two sets were likely equally as important to the players and coaches, the grand finale was brimming with intrigue as Marion and Valley View butted heads.

While it was just a preseason set, it also bears mentioning that it was a preseason set between last season’s Class 6A champions and last season’s Class 5A champions.

Going even further, Valley View had bested Marion over the summer in team camps, which did not sit well with the competitive Lady Pats.

After the Lady Blazers scored the first two points of the set, Marion scored 11 out of the next 13 points of the match to force a Valley View timeout, and bring the partisan Marion crowd to life.

“The first couple of times that we played them at team, they got us, but it was different tonight with all of our fans here,” said Parker, who posted three kills and served aces on three consecutive points in the Valley View set. “I thought we played really well as a team, and we really came together for that one. It was fun.”

While Marion slapped together a pair of long scoring stretches, Valley View never scored more than two points in a row in the set, and they did that only twice en route to a 25-12 Marion victory to cap off a 3-0 outing for the hosts.

“That’s what makes this team so special, is that there’s not one star, or one standout,” Beasley said of her squad. “I was really proud to see what we saw, but I want us to be able to build on it and still get better as the year goes on.”

By Chuck Livingston