44TH DISTRICT VOLLEYBALL: Central, Southern to meet in finals for 11th-straight season

Nathan Hutchinson, Richmond Register, Ky.
·2 min read

Oct. 18—Nathan Hutchinson

BEREA — Madison Central (25-10) and Madison Southern (11-17) are set to meet in the championship game of the 44th District Tournament for the 11th-straight season.

Both teams rolled to easy straight-set wins in the tournament's opening round on Monday at Berea Community School.

The Lady Indians topped Model, 25-8, 25-8, 25-7, while the Lady Eagles defeated Berea Community, 25-8, 25-16 and 25-16.

The title game is scheduled for 6 p.m. today at Berea Community.

"The (championship) games the past couple of years have been very competitive," Southern coach Jeremy Grant said. "They are always intense."

Neither team really needed to crank up the intensity too much on Monday to get into the title game again.

In the first semifinal, Central overwhelmed Model (5-22), jumping out to big leads in each set. The Lady Indians were up 9-1 in the first, 8-2 in the second and 12-0 in the third.

Camille Case had 16 digs for Central. Emma Carter had seven assists and Journey Miserendino had six assists. Avery Rigney, Skylar Whitaker and Ananiah Huguely had four kills each.

Central has never dropped a set in six all-time meetings with the Lady Patriots.

Berea took a set from Southern on Aug. 29 in the only regular season match-up between the district rivals.

The Lady Pirates (7-13) also trailed early in each set on Monday, but they kept battling — especially in the third.

Southern scored 10 of the first 11 points of the match. The Lady Eagles used big kills from Jordyn Walker and Julia Bingham to take control of the second set.

In the third, Berea Community took a 9-3 lead before Southern won six-straight points. A kill by Abby Dees helped the Lady Eagles wrap up the victory.

"We just had to keep our heads on straight and not let little things bother us," Southern senior Breanna Dawes said. "That will be a big thing (in the title game) too. Just keeping our heads in the game and not getting distracted."

Reagan Burns had 17 assists and eight digs. Dawes had 10 digs. Abby McMullin had eight digs and three kills. Dees had nine aces. Walker had eight kills, six assists, four digs and a block, while Julia Bingham had 10 kills, seven digs, six aces and three blocks.

Central won the only regular-season meeting with Southern, rolling to a 3-0 win (25-8, 25-13 and 25-7).

"We didn't have our best effort when we played them a few weeks ago," Grant said. "We've tweaked the line-up and we are going to do some different things up front to try to slow them down a little bit."