Marion wins River City tourney
Marion wins River City tourney
Lady Pats capture tournament for sixth year in a row
Sports Editor The Marion Lady Patriots made quite a bit of history over the weekend.
The defending Class 6A state champions participated in the 2016 River City Tournament, which was held in Bartlett and Arlington, Tennessee, and posted a flawless 7-0 record to win the tournament against teams from all over Tennessee, Mississippi and Brookland, a fellow Arkansas foe.
Marion won all 14 sets that it participated in, topping Germantown and DeSoto Central in back-toback matches on Friday evening before beating Munford and St. Benedict Academy to clinch the number 1 seed from Pool C.
Once there, the Lady Pats beat out Brookland in the first contest of the knockout round, Tipton-Rosemark in the semifinals and then beat Houston High School for the title.
It was the sixth season in a row that Marion (13-1 overall, 6-1 6A/5A-East) has won an out-of-state volleyball tournament, in addition to winning the Southaven Invitational the past five seasons.
“I couldn’t be more proud just to win, and then we had so many different lineups that it made it hard sometimes,” said Marion head coach Lisa Beasley, who won her 500th game as a head volleyball coach against DeSoto Central on Friday evening (details in Tuesday’s sports). “We had one on Friday night, another one on Saturday morning, and then another one on Saturday afternoon.”
On Friday night, senior Ally Bramucci only played on the back row as she continued to deal with an ankle injury that she sustained back on August 30.
Additionally, senior Hope Phipps had to leave the match on Friday after colliding with a teammate.
In her stead, junior Caroline Brinkley stepped in and played libero in Marion’s pair of wins.
“Caroline was really great,” Beasley said.
On Saturday, Marion was without seniors Gabi Catt and Maggie Aureli, who were taking the ACT.
“On Saturday, Ally played all the way around, and was great, especially considering she hadn’t played all the way around in a few weeks,” said Beasley.
“Then on Saturday afternoon, we had our original lineup out there that we had against Valley View.”
While Marion’s 14 straight set wins were pretty impressive, they did survive a few scares along the way.
Against St. Benedict Academy, Marion fell behind 20-12 in the race to 25 points, before turning the tables to come back to win the set 25-23.
In the semifinal against Tipton-Rosemark, Marion erased a very late 24-19 deficit to win 26-24 and roll to the final.
“To do that against some of these teams really says a lot about our girls,” Beasley said. “It just ended up being a long day here because we left the school at 7:30, then we played twice, then we had the longest break ever, and then we had to come back and still played well. So, I’m pretty pleased.”
Marion is off today, but will jump back into conference play on Tuesday afternoon with Jonesboro at Marion Middle School Gym.
The Lady Pats will be looking to win its 27thstraight home match, dating back to a loss to Jonesboro on September 5, 2013.
The match will begin at 4:30 p.m. with a 7th-grade match.
By Chuck Livingston
