By Donald Heath
Special for the Effingham Herald
SAVANNAH – South Effingham’s veteran volleyball team played inconsistently in key spurts against St. Vincent’s and Savannah Christian on Tuesday, but second-year coach Haywood Ellison remained even keeled.
“We know what we can do and we’ll get better,” Ellison said.
Two days later, the Mustangs won the key points in a 3-0 (25-22, 28-26, 25-22) victory over Savannah Arts.
South lost its season-opening matches with St. Vincent’s 2-0 (25-21, 25-21) and Savannah Christian 2-1 (winning the first set 25-14, then dropping the next two 25-15 and 15-12).
The two trips to Savannah were a tough way to start the season. A year ago, the Mustangs advanced to the Elite Eight of Class 6A, but they lost in straight sets (2-0) in non-region matchups with each of the Savannah schools.
But SEHS beat Arts for the first time since 2019 on Thursday. The Mustangs are 2-28 all-time against St. Vincent’s and 0-17 all-time against Savannah Christian, according to MaxPreps records that date back to 2007.
“It’s early in the season. You never want to tell your team the matches don’t count but toward region and state (these matches) don’t,” Ellison said.
Still, the second-year coach didn’t like seeing mental lapses in the opening two matches. Against St. Vincent’s, South gave up two 5-0 runs in the first set and a 12-4 spurt in the second set as early leads evaporated.
The Mustangs won the first set easily against Savannah Christian before getting blown out in the second set.
SEHS led the tiebreaker with the Raiders 6-4, but then dropped the next six points to fall behind.
“Our court awareness was off a little tonight. We didn’t play badly, but we played badly in spurts,” Ellison said.
But there were encouraging signs. SEHS has a proven one-two punch with middle blocker Clara Vorel and setter Riley Stringer. And some added punch came from sophomore Morgan Stringer, Riley’s younger sister. Morgan had a team-leading 11 kills in the win against Savannah Arts. She had 12 in the two season-opening matches.
A year ago, Morgan Stringer was called up to varsity from the junior varsity team and provided some added spark to get the Mustangs past Glynn Academy and Effingham County en route to a second-place finish in the region tournament.
“She was a big reason why we made a run in the postseason last year,” Ellison said. “We’ll play her all-around because she’s a good passer and can make plays from the back row, along with her hitting on the front row.”
Outside hitter Anna Kate Taylor came up clutch in the tiebreaker with Savannah Christian when she blocked the Red Raiders’ big hitter Maggie Kyriakides. Taylor then added a kill on the next point to close the Mustangs within two, 12-10.
Vorel finished with 19 kills in the two matches with St. Vincent’s and Savannah Christian. Riley Stringer had 33 of the team’s 37 assists.
“You want to play clean but we had some errors that cost us (during the opening matches),” Ellison said. “We’ll figure it out.”
