Prep volleyball: Evangelical Christian sweeps First Baptist for 3A-6 crown
The First Baptist Academy volleyball team faced a big challenge on the court against Evangelical Christian School in the District 3A-6 title match Thursday night.
But according to FBA coach Marci Walker, the things that did in the Lions were not on the playing floor but instead in the players’ minds.
Walker was upset after several mental breakdowns led to the Lions’ 3-0 loss to the Sentinels in a 25-13, 25-21, 25-12 dismantling at Seacrest Country Day School.
In all three sets, the action was close at first, but then the Sentinels pulled away later on to win all three times.
ECS beat the Lions for the third time in the last 23 days. The Sentinels also had victories in a 3-0 sweep on Sept. 26 and registered a 3-1 win over FBA in Naples on Oct. 10. So including Thursday’s triumph, ECS has won all but one of 10 sets against the Lions this year.
“For whatever reason, we also shut down mentally whenever we play ECS,” Walker said. “I know our players can do better than this. ECS is a great team, sure, but we sort of gave up early. We were hesitant on a lot of things and ECS was strong and aggressive when serving the ball.”
Evangelical Christian will host a region semifinal game next Thursday night against Bradenton Christian, the District 3A-5 runner-up while First Baptist will play on the road in the region semis at 3A-5 champion Sarasota-Out-of-Door Academy.
ECS was a perfect 6-0 in the district tournament. The Sentinels swept Southwest Florida Christian 3-0 on Tuesday night.
Despite a disappointing loss, Walker is confident the Lions, who knocked off perennial power Seacrest in the district semifinals, have learned from this and even hopes for a fourth crack at the Sentinels.
“I think we can only improve from here when playing against ECS,” Walker said. “We still need to get refocused, because our season isn’t necessarily over. Hopefully, we will mature as players and who knows? We may get the chance to play them again later on.”
Evangelical Christian coach Theresa Kabel used a baseball analogy to describe an impressive volleyball win for her team.
“We just stepped up to the plate tonight and came through,” Kabel said. “I’m excited for the players right now, because this was a payoff for all the work we’ve done this season. They key for us tonight was tenacity. Our players simply wanted the ball every time.”
In the first set, Evangelical Christian broke open a close game to take a 17-6 lead and then it was pretty much over.
The second set was closer at the end. With six straight points from Morgan Tyson and Samantha Bebber, the Sentinels had a commanding 17-11 lead before First Baptist rallied back. With three points from Alexa Moutzolf, the Lions got to within 18-17. But then ECS outside hitter Amber Dudek served up four straight to give ECS a hard-fought, four-point victory.
Senior Lily Tessier put ECS ahead 3-0 in the third set before the Lions rallied to tie it at 4-4. Serving aces from libero and setter Tatianna Goldburg and Tessier later in the set eventually helped the Sentinels assume a 20-10 bulge.