New Albany rallies back to defeat Tishomingo County
Sep. 23—NEW ALBANY — New Albany came back from being down a set to take the next three and defeat Tishomingo County 3-1. Scores from the match were 25-27, 25-15, 25-11, 26-24.
"We kinda came out distracted tonight and that distraction caused us not to play as hard as we should," New Albany coach Ashley Connolly said. "We came back in the second set and started playing like we know how to play.
"Then in the third set more of the same, but in the fourth set we started to let them come back, but we held it in and played through. I'm very proud of them."
New Albany got great production during the second set from Lucy King with her three kills and an ace; Lilly Shannon had two kills, a block plus the set clinching ace and Madison Smith with two aces and a kill.
King helped the Bulldogs take the third set as she knocked down two kills, two blocks and an ace for the 25-11 set win.
Tishomingo County fought back from being down 19-13 in the fourth set and tied it at 24-all before New Albany was able to put the issue to rest with the final two points to take the set 26-24 and match 3-1.
Outside hitter Reese Moore was a force all night for the Braves and drove in three kills during the furious comeback.
New Albany's trio of King, Shannon and Teelie Tyer delivered in the set offensively as King cranked out four kills and a block; Tyer added three kills and Shannon added two kills.
"Takeaways from tonight, we have got to start off strong, Lucy played very strong and so did Lilly, in fact I feel like all of our hitters came out and performed and did what they needed to do," Connolly said. "We need to take from this to stay aggressive."
Tishomingo County coach Brian Middleton was pleased with his team's early success, but saw that disappear early in the second set as their 8-5 lead vanished and New Albany closed on a 20-7 run.
"I thought our energy just went," Middleton said. "She (Connolly) called a timeout at 8-5 or some point around there and I said 'look we got to pick our energy up because they are going to come after us.' Our energy just went into a lull and you could see that in our play, we started making mistakes, we started getting out of position.
"Number five for them (Amberianna Shorter), I thought she was everywhere and I told them that we are letting one girl out-hustle us out there. She was getting every loose ball. We decided to pick it up at the end, but it was too little, too late."
New Albany leads Division 1-4A with a 5-0 record while Tishomingo County is second at 3-2 with three games to go.
