State Tournament Schedule

[tricitiessportsfan]

I want to get others opinions on the bolded section of the article below, from the Kingsport Times-News.

 

 

Bruins thwart Indians

Brentwood reins in D-B??™s state run for second straight year

By JOHN MOOREHOUSE

jmoorehouse@timesnews.net

 

MURFREESBORO ??” Another trip to the state tournament ended with the same result for the Dobyns-Bennett volleyball team.

 

For the second straight year, the Lady Indians saw their season end at the hands of Brentwood in the TSSAA Class AAA semifinals.

 

The Lady Bruins defeated D-B 25-22, 25-23, 21-25, 25-16 on Friday at Siegel High School. Brentwood, the two-time defending state champion, lost to district rival Independence in the finals. The first-place team from D-B??™s pool, Independence beat Brentwood 25-12, 23-25, 25-15, 25-20.

 

The Tribe, which finished with a 50-8 record, loses only two seniors from this year??™s squad.

 

???They have the most heart of any team I??™ve ever coached,??? D-B coach Kathi Shaffer said.

 

???They never quit. When their backs are against a wall and they should quit, everybody in the world would quit, and they don??™t. I??™m very proud of them.???

 

The final points of the second game embodied that indefatigable spirit. Brentwood held a 24-19 lead and a two-game advantage seemed inevitable. But a Megan Devine kill forced a Bruins side-out, and D-B proceeded to score another three straight points to make it 24-23 before the Bruins??™ Emily Van Grinsven knocked down a game- ending kill.

 

The Lady Indians carried over that positive momentum to the third game, taking the lead for good on Devine??™s kill to break a 10-all tie, and winning the game on a successful attack by Meredith Hardy.

 

Brentwood promptly righted the ship, however. Lady The Bruins never trailed in the fourth and final game, though D-B did force a 13-13 tie. Brentwood reeled off the final six points in succession, with a rowdy crowd of fellow Brentwood students cheering them to victory.

 

The Brentwood fans unleashed a steady stream of chants and heckles throughout the match. Several teams from the surrounding area, including Independence, also had large cheering sections Friday.

 

???We have to learn to block it out, but there is an effect,??? said Devine, a target of many of the Brentwood students??™ chants. ???Since we??™re the farthest away, we pretty much have nobody from our school to come support us. But we have our parents and they??™re great. That helps us out a lot.???

 

The cozy confines of Siegel put the fans much closer to the action. Students from both Brentwood and Independence were able to get right on top of players from opposing teams as they dropped back to serve ??” a luxury not provided at the previous state tournament venue, Middle Tennessee State.

 

???It??™s a real advantage,??? Shaffer said. ???Our following was awesome and they made a lot of noise. But playing in this area, all these teams (from) Nashville and Chattanooga and Cookeville that are an hour and a half away, what an advantage. They brought busloads. It helps.???

 

Brentwood (45-20) got plenty of support, but advanced to the finals thanks to its defense.

 

???They have the best defense I??™ve ever seen,??? said Devine, who finished with a team-high 18 kills to go with 36 digs. ???They just dug up everything.???

 

???Their defense is phenomenal,??? Shaffer agreed. ???Very little hits the floor and they pass perfectly, so they get to run a lot of offense. And they??™re quick.

 

???Quick is effective. They didn??™t have their usual big gun that??™ll just take your head off, but they were very efficient.???

 

Sophomore Lauren Kaufman paced the Brentwood attack with 21 kills and nine blocks, two of them solo. Van Grinsven added a dozen kills.

 

Hardy contributed 16 kills and four blocks for the Tribe. Sarah Taylor, one of the two seniors, reached for 49 digs. Jamie Rutledge added 10 kills to go with 43 assists, often dishing it successfully whether the incoming pass was good or bad.

 

???That??™s what Jamie does,??? Shaffer said. ???I worry because I??™m afraid she??™s going to get a hankering to run cross country. It might be less running, with all we do.???

 

After last year??™s loss to Brentwood, D-B held a team meeting that lasted nearly an hour. The Lady Indians emerged from the locker room much more quickly this time ??” and with a distinct goal already in mind.

 

???We immediately said, ??

[KDfan10]

I want to get others opinions on the bolded section of the article below, from the Kingsport Times-News.

 

 

Bruins thwart Indians

Brentwood reins in D-B??™s state run for second straight year

By JOHN MOOREHOUSE

jmoorehouse@timesnews.net

 

MURFREESBORO ??” Another trip to the state tournament ended with the same result for the Dobyns-Bennett volleyball team.

 

For the second straight year, the Lady Indians saw their season end at the hands of Brentwood in the TSSAA Class AAA semifinals.

 

The Lady Bruins defeated D-B 25-22, 25-23, 21-25, 25-16 on Friday at Siegel High School. Brentwood, the two-time defending state champion, lost to district rival Independence in the finals. The first-place team from D-B??™s pool, Independence beat Brentwood 25-12, 23-25, 25-15, 25-20.

 

The Tribe, which finished with a 50-8 record, loses only two seniors from this year??™s squad.

 

???They have the most heart of any team I??™ve ever coached,??? D-B coach Kathi Shaffer said.

 

???They never quit. When their backs are against a wall and they should quit, everybody in the world would quit, and they don??™t. I??™m very proud of them.???

 

The final points of the second game embodied that indefatigable spirit. Brentwood held a 24-19 lead and a two-game advantage seemed inevitable. But a Megan Devine kill forced a Bruins side-out, and D-B proceeded to score another three straight points to make it 24-23 before the Bruins??™ Emily Van Grinsven knocked down a game- ending kill.

 

The Lady Indians carried over that positive momentum to the third game, taking the lead for good on Devine??™s kill to break a 10-all tie, and winning the game on a successful attack by Meredith Hardy.

 

Brentwood promptly righted the ship, however. Lady The Bruins never trailed in the fourth and final game, though D-B did force a 13-13 tie. Brentwood reeled off the final six points in succession, with a rowdy crowd of fellow Brentwood students cheering them to victory.

 

The Brentwood fans unleashed a steady stream of chants and heckles throughout the match. Several teams from the surrounding area, including Independence, also had large cheering sections Friday.

 

???We have to learn to block it out, but there is an effect,??? said Devine, a target of many of the Brentwood students??™ chants. ???Since we??™re the farthest away, we pretty much have nobody from our school to come support us. But we have our parents and they??™re great. That helps us out a lot.???

 

The cozy confines of Siegel put the fans much closer to the action. Students from both Brentwood and Independence were able to get right on top of players from opposing teams as they dropped back to serve ??” a luxury not provided at the previous state tournament venue, Middle Tennessee State.

 

???It??™s a real advantage,??? Shaffer said. ???Our following was awesome and they made a lot of noise. But playing in this area, all these teams (from) Nashville and Chattanooga and Cookeville that are an hour and a half away, what an advantage. They brought busloads. It helps.???

 

Brentwood (45-20) got plenty of support, but advanced to the finals thanks to its defense.

 

???They have the best defense I??™ve ever seen,??? said Devine, who finished with a team-high 18 kills to go with 36 digs. ???They just dug up everything.???

 

???Their defense is phenomenal,??? Shaffer agreed. ???Very little hits the floor and they pass perfectly, so they get to run a lot of offense. And they??™re quick.

 

???Quick is effective. They didn??™t have their usual big gun that??™ll just take your head off, but they were very efficient.???

 

Sophomore Lauren Kaufman paced the Brentwood attack with 21 kills and nine blocks, two of them solo. Van Grinsven added a dozen kills.

 

Hardy contributed 16 kills and four blocks for the Tribe. Sarah Taylor, one of the two seniors, reached for 49 digs. Jamie Rutledge added 10 kills to go with 43 assists, often dishing it successfully whether the incoming pass was good or bad.

 

???That??™s what Jamie does,??? Shaffer said. ???I worry because I??™m afraid she??™s going to get a hankering to run cross country. It might be less running, with all we do.???

 

After last year??™s loss to Brentwood, D-B held a team meeting that lasted nearly an hour. The Lady Indians emerged from the locker room much more quickly this time ??” and with a distinct goal already in mind.

 

???We immediately said, ??

[PHargis]

I feel like all the volleyball teams deserved better than what TSSAA provided. These girls work hard all year to get to this place and it was no better than being at a regular volleyball tournament. Althouh Siegal did a great job with what was given them, I think TSSAA needs to rethink where they hold next year's State Tournament. Maybe a solution would be to allow each area to have an opportunity to host the State Tournament. I can say that each team's servers showed great poise while serving the ball in such close quarters. As far as a drawback for player degrading, I would say yes, but I have seen this in our area schools also. For example, some half dressed fans (where was the dress code?) heckling, chanting, and also allowing a fan on the floor while play was going on. This went on with the Administration, Athletic Director, and coaching staff doing nothing to prevent it. At least I did see security and officials trying to hold down some of the situations that could have gotten out of hand at Siegel. There is nothing wrong with good fan support, but when it gets personal against the player, then someone in authority should put a stop to it. I guess this just goes to show you that some fans are pretty much the same no matter what part of the state or school they are from.

Some of these situations do come from actions at other sports, i.e, football, basketball but even volleyball. You can even see it on TV I'm afraid. If this is not acceptable and society says it isn't(and where does it stop), then how can you enforce something on disgression without some hard and fast rules. It is true the Serving area is not what the Tournament is used to but in going around to Matches, what is acceptable. Where is that defined and does crowd behavior need to be better defined. The rules are there to take care of the situation. and it appears if the crowd did not settle down, points needed to be taken away from the offending school until things were setted down. I thought, for some reason, that educating schools on protocols had been done. It has to be done continuously. This site has covered the protocol many times in the past 4 years. It is not enough. Schools need some way to educate crowd response in VB at the school. This was a football response. The GLJ has repeatedly discussed what would be done if things got out of control. Why would this site continually go thru having an official discuss it. I'm afraid the discussion has been given too lightly and I'm also afraid the repercussions have not reached everyone. It is likely that this could have been worse and that includes storming the floor after a match which even the College/University scene now FINES schools for this action. Not to discourage students for enthusiasm, but schools are now getting too large and storming CAN get someone hurt and this also includes parents setting the right example and for tht matter keeping parents off the floor entirely. One might think that to be drastic but its called "providing an example" even if it means shagging balls. In their behalf, Siegel High School knows how to stop actions and their administration handles things much worse than happened at the State. As was explained, "We were handed a package and told that this was our job". While I'm sure there was a walk thru as has been explained but the TSSAA was the controlling entity. I believe if in the walk thru if SHS was specifically told their role, and it is in the rules, steps could have been taken. If the officials knew the rules and carried it thru, there might be less fans in the arena, but things would have been different. Enough has been said about the situation, and I hope finally the GLJ, if he wants, will reply. Likely is now not the time but there will be time. IMO this situation is much larger than the State Tournament Situation. This could happen to any large school in the State, any sport.

Again, Siegel security, made the point that after the court was reconfigured and fans had walking space, that the pressure was relieved immediately. I was there and it was true. Fans were further from the court. Fans did storm the floor after the match.

To say one last thing, this was a great Tournament. There are always things of concern in a VB tournament. Some years its lifts. Every year it's consistancey of officiating. Some years its been MTSU and how they've handled things.

Every year its the TSSAA. It looks as if they can expect it. The technical part of the Sport deals with minute details and when someone in a match does not do their job exactly right, its obvious. Thats what makes this sport so great. Now let me say one other thing about the scorekeeping situation and the rules violations situations. If anyone thinks that this was just a State Championship situation of a mix up on the score, have another think coming. It happened at Red Bank the week before in the Substate match between Red Bank and Siegel. It's also happened in matches elsewhere and I would bet that many of you have seen the official go thru the laborous task to get it taken care of and that match had an up and down official. So just don't thinik it only happened at State. And what about the rules and methods to keep up with liberos and substitutions. It's difficult enough for experienced officials and teams to keep up with, with fasted paced substituting. I contend that substituting is more fast paced and complicated now.

But thats what too much disgression puts too much pressure on individual officials and if you let the people who do the job, handle it the way they normal do, it won't be perfect but likely it will be smoother. Officials work as a team and , IMO, breaking up teams and getting them to be perfect with this much detail, has problems every year. maybe the solution is the provide teams of officials from different parts of the state if that has to be done.

It's true, everyone can always do a better job. But this tournament was again a great State Championship and one which, I hope, the players and coaches will remember for the right reasons.