By Donald Heath
Special for the Effingham Herald
GUYTON – South Effingham and Effingham County entered the Region 1-5A double-elimination volleyball tournament at the Mustangs gym Oct. 11 with high hopes.
SEHS was the top seed from the South subregion and ECHS was a competitive third seed from the North subregion.
But the Rebels lost their opening match of the day in three sets to Glynn Academy and the Mustangs lost their second match to Greenbrier.
It set up an elimination match between the local teams and ECHS won 2-0 en route to a fourth-place finish and a spot in the Class 5A state tournament.
The Rebels (28-15) advanced to play East Paulding (30-9) in the first round today (Oct. 16) in Dallas, Georgia.
SEHS, an Elite Eight finisher a year ago, failed to make state this year and saw its season end with a 21-16 record.
“The thing about it was I didn’t think we played badly,” Mustangs coach Haywood Ellison said. “One play here or there and we’re in the playoffs. It was a tough tournament and you had to be ready to play your best games of the season.”
ECHS coach Brittany Lein wasn’t too happy with a No. 4 seed at state for the second straight year.
“We’re still playing and I know that’s positive,” Lein said. “My frustration is just how (poorly) we played collectively. We had been killing it all season and we just didn’t kill it today when we needed to.”
ECHS slipped in the first round when it lost to Glynn Academy 2-1 for the third time this season.
“We didn’t hit a single ball against Glynn and we made a lot of errors,” Lein said. “We just didn’t play well. That was probably the worst I’ve seen us play in two months.”
The Rebels had a school-record 10-game winning streak entering the week and had beaten Lakeside and Greenbrier, the two teams ahead of them in the subregion standings, in rematches during the regular season so there was good reason for optimism.
SEHS began the tournament with a win over Evans before losing two sets of 25-23 to Greenbrier.
ECHS won a losers’ bracket game against Statesboro before taking down the Mustangs 2-0 (25-15, 25-21).
“The hard part was having a conversation with the seniors about what they’ve done for the program the last four years,” said Ellison about seniors Riley Stringer, Emma Pierson, Carsyn Genens and Ansley Adkins. “They helped change the culture and our expectations.”
Later in the afternoon, eventual champion Lakeside eliminated the Rebels 2-0. Lein said she saw her team revert to playing like it had against Glynn.
And that style of play probably won’t work against East Paulding, a squad that has won 15 of its last 16 matches.
“We were constantly on the defense, never being offensively sound to score points,” Lein said. “We were just hoping (our opponent) would make mistakes. You can’t play like that against good teams.”
