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Oak Ridge Lady War Eagles Volleyball push through adversity, take down Tomball

By: Jason Halpert, WOL Sports
| Published 09/02/2014

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THE WOODLANDS, Texas- The Oak Ridge Lady War Eagles fought through some early game stagnation to best the Tomball High School Cougars by a score of 25-16, 25-11, 25-23 on Oak Ridge’s home court Tuesday night. Oak Ridge is now 11-1 in their last 12 games, and are looking to hit their stride with district play around the corner.

“We are yet to drop a set when we get behind like we did in the third,” said head coach Tommie Lynne Sledge. “It will be tougher to do that against teams in district, but we haven’t dropped a set when we were down like that yet, and that makes me really happy.”

Leading the way for the Lady War Eagles was Brooke Clark with 13 kills, to go along with nine digs. Jackie Ward had a strong game with 18 assists and 15 digs, and Carly Graham added 13 digs, 12 assists, and six kills. Raigen Cianciulli led the way in digs with 22.

The first game saw both teams making errors as they tried to gain traction, but an ace by sophomore Raigen Cianciulli put some separation between the teams at 13-7, causing Tomball to take a timeout. She would continue serving until the score was 15-7, and momentum would stay with the Lady War Eagles for the rest of the game. Back-to-back kills by Brooke Clark made the score 20-12, and after a cross court kill by senior Morgan McCoy, the first game went comfortably to Oak Ridge by a score of 25-16.

“The way we come out in the first game, the fire we start with, always gets me excited and pumped,” surmised Sledge.

Like the last few Oak Ridge contests, the second set started with both teams going back and forth, and the score remaining tight. However, after a kill and three-point serving run by Rhyan Johnson, the score started to separate with Oak Ridge leading 9-5. After a few errors by both sides, freshman, Carly Graham slammed a kill down the right side of the court to give Oak Ridge a 12-7 lead, and that caused Tomball to take a timeout to regroup.The timeout didn’t stop the Lady War Eagles, and after a dig by Graham and finish by Clark, the score had grown to 17-8. Oak Ridge would ride their strong play to a 25-11 second game win.

The third game was played with a higher intensity, and after a clever touch shot by Graham to the near side court made the score 5-5, both teams seemed confident they could take a lead soon thereafter. This time it was Tomball who had the answers, and after a few breaks went the Panthers way, Oak Ridge took a timeout trailing 11-6. Rejuvenated by the timeout, Oak Ridge came out firing on all cylinder with Graham serving. The Lady War Eagles ran off four points in a row to close the gap to 11-10 Tomball. At that point the game started to be played with mini-runs on both sides, but after an error by Tomball, the score was tied up at 16. Tomball quickly rebounded and reeled off four points in a row to grab a 20-16 lead, but Oak Ridge came right back with a streak of their own. After a Clark kill, the score was knotted at 20, and Tomball needed another timeout. With the game still deadlocked at 22, Clark came up huge yet again, with the kill to give Oak Ridge the lead at 23-22, and after an attempted block by Tomball sailed out of bounds, the game ended 25-23, and the match was over.

“Clark is just a sophomore, but she has more heart and passion; if she knows she needs to work on something, she will be the first one here at practice,” said Sledge. “She wants to do nothing but improve. She has high expectations for herself, and she doesn’t want to be in anyone’s shadow.”

Oak Ridge will look to continue it’s torrid pace against Klein Collins at home on Friday, September 5th.

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