Facing less pressure now that they are eliminated from playoff contention, the Fort Mill volleyball team swept the Catawba Ridge Copperheads 3-0 (25-19, 25-13, 25-9) in their second regular season meeting between the two local schools.
In fact, Fort Mill has put together back-to-back 3-0 sweeps of their opponents beating Rock Hill Tuesday evening by the same score. The Jackets are now 8-5 on the season, while Catawba Ridge drops to 9-7-3 on the season.
The Jackets were eliminated from the playoffs last week after falling to Gaffney. Since then they haven’t dropped a set.
“Everyone is having a little more fun,” said Fort Mill head coach Kelly Jones. “We want to finish the season strong. Our goal now is to win every set and get playing time to come out stronger than we started.”
Fort Mill took an early command in the opening set and jumped out to a 19-13 lead. Both teams exchanged points from that point on, but the Jackets were too strong at the net to relinquish its lead.
Catawba Ridge took an early lead in the opening of the second set, but Fort Mill quickly caught them and started pulling away going up 8-2 before a Copperhead time out. Coming out of the time out, Fort Mill was able to pull away going up 18-10 before closing the set out and taking a 2-0 lead.
In the third set, it was all Fort Mill as they went up 4-1 and never really looked back again forcing a time out from Catawba Ridge with a 17-5 lead.
Despite the loss, Catawba Ridge is playoff bound and will open the playoffs Oct. 27. They still have two more regular season matches against Northwestern and Ridge View before then, both of them being at home. Fort Mill has three more regular season matches to end their season against Rock Hill at home and then on the road at York and South Pointe.
Tennis
Coming off a 3-3 tie between the two schools, Fort Mill girls’ tennis was able to bounce back and handily beat Catawba Ridge 5-1 Wednesday night at Fort Mill High.
The two teams played to a 3-3 tie Monday and due to injuries decided not to continue. However, their match Wednesday was a different matter. Fort Mill has one more regular season match against York at home, while for Catawba Ridge the match ended their regular season. They are both 10-2-1 on the season and both will be in the playoffs.
Winning for Fort Mill was No. 1 singles Madison McCarty 6-3, 6-3; No. 2 singles Katie Pierson 6-7, 7-5, 1-0 (10-5); No. 3 singles Sophie Bennett 7-5, 6-3 and No. 5 singles Bristol Kershaw 6-1, 4-6, 1-0 (10-4). Kate Hill and Clara Lake won at No. 2 doubles for the Jackets 6-1, 6-2. The lone win for Catawba Ridge in the match came from No. 4 singles Aiyana Uter 6-7, 6-0, 1-0 (10-5).
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
