Red Bank and Signal Mountain are neighboring communities with high schools about 10 miles apart. However, any time an athletic event matching those schools took place, it never helped nor hurt either one in their league standings. That is, until Tuesday.
The Lady Eagles' volleyball team defeated Red Bank 3-0 in a District 7-AA match at Signal Mountain. Set scores were 25-7, 25-21, 25-15.
Many who attended elementary and middle school on Signal Mountain, including Lady Eagles first-year coach Bailee Barrett, went to high school at Red Bank before the mountain school opened in 2008. Signal Mountain competed in Class A to begin with and won a volleyball state title in 2010 before moving up the next season.
Barrett recalled the volleyball teams playing each other in consecutive postseasons, but it wasn't until the state-sectional round where winners advance to the state tournament. The Lady Eagles won in 2011. The Lionettes won the next year.
"It's a natural rivalry because of how close they are," Barrett said of the schools. "But our rivals have always been Notre Dame and Chattanooga Christian, but they've moved to Division II. Now that us and Red Bank are in the same district, I think you'll see it start to develop."
Both programs were district champions last season with Signal Mountain winning District 7 and Red Bank winning District 6. But the Lady Eagles looked like the team that replenished faster.
They scored the first six points of Tuesday's match and later had a 9-0 run to make it 15-3 with the last eight points coming behind Briley Lowery's serve. The Lionettes were more competitive the last two sets.
Signal Mountain took the lead for good in the second set at 10-9 on one of Francie Hunt's six aces in the match. And although the Lady Eagles led by as much as 10, Red Bank battled back within 23-21.
The Lionettes got out to an 11-3 lead in the third set, but Signal Mountain caught them at 13, then passed them at 14 on back-to-back kills by Cora Hansen.
"We started putting our guard down a little bit," Barrett said. "At the same time, they served really tough. We couldn't pass the ball. They had some really good digs on some of our best players, too."
Red Bank went from having three seniors who played regularly last year to having three seniors total on this year's team.
"We don't have court-awareness right now," Red Bank coach Savannah Nelson said. "We don't know how to hit the sweet spots. We don't know how to hit the open holes. We have a lot of work to do, but there's potential there."
The coach said she was proud of how her players came back and played after the first set.
"It could've went south real quick," Nelson said. "I didn't change the lineup. They had to believe they could do it. They had to have the will to want to work. Self-motivation helped them a lot."
Maia Rackel led the Lady Eagles with 18 kills. Hunt and libero Alexia Hensley were the digs leaders with 15 each. Kate Barry set for 35 assists.
Libero Layla Babb sparked the Lionettes with eight digs and three kills. Hannah Wood also had three kills, Sydney Hoppe contributed five digs and Hailey Hanks added four and served two aces.
Contact Kelley Smiddie at ksmiddie@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6653. Follow him on Twitter @KelleySmiddie.