The Nation Ford Falcons girls’ volleyball team opened the 5A state playoffs with a 3-0 sweep of the Byrnes Rebels in the first round Wednesday night.
Nation Ford won 25-20, 25-14, 25-21 over Byrnes and will now face Hillcrest at home on Monday, Oct. 23. The Falcons beat Hillcrest earlier in the season 2-1 at a tournament at River Bluff High School.
“We started slow, but we finished strong,” said Nation Ford head coach Craig Brown. “We are heading in the right direction. We need to keep getting better. Hillcrest is going to be tough.”
Byrnes started the first set off by going up 5-1, but the Falcons battled back to tie the set at 6-6. Nation Ford then went up 10-6 scoring nine of 10 consecutive points. Byrnes stayed close to the Falcons as Nation Ford pushed their lead to 17-13. However, the Rebels came roaring back to tie the set at 17.
The Falcons were able to regroup after a time out and scored eight of the final 11 points to take the opening set.
The second set wasn’t as close as Nation Ford went up 5-3 and slowly built out their lead to 16-10 as they stayed in command the entire set.
The third set didn’t start close, but by the end of it, Byrnes was threatening. Nation Ford went up 5-0 and then pulled ahead 12-4, but the Rebels started chipping away at the score. Byrnes pulled within two at 22-20 forcing Nation Ford into a time out. From there, the Falcons were able to pull away and get the sweep scoring three of the next four points.
Nation Ford player Ella Scott was recognized for achieving her 1,000th career assist against River Bluff earlier in the season.
The Falcons improved to 28-9-1 overall on the season with the win over Byrnes.
For the Fort Mill Yellow Jackets, they opened the first round on the road at Hillcrest and fell 3-0 (25-19, 25-20, 28-26).
Fort Mill rallied back from down 21-11 in the third set to take a 23-21 lead, but Hillcrest would score the final four points to put the match away. Fort Mill had forced two set points in the third set, but couldn’t close it out.
The loss knocks Fort Mill out of the 5A playoffs ending their season at 15-8 overall.
John Turner contributed to this article.
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
