Lady Mavs fall to familiar foe

Nolensville repeats as state champs, ACHS takes runner-up

October 28, 2020 by Collin Riggs

A familiar opponent ended Anderson County High School’s 2020 State Volleyball Championship Tournament hopes.

Nolensville.

After dominating the competition throughout the tourney, the Lady Knights of Nolensville turned in a repeat performance of their 2019 season, finishing as back-to-back AA State Volleyball champions.

The Lady Mavs traveled to Blackman High School in Murfreesboro for the state tournament, where they finished as state runner-up.

This was the first time the Mavs had made it to the final round of the championship since 2007, and they faced a long road to get there.

Their first game of the tournament came against Greeneville, who they shut out 3-0, albeit with close sets of 25-20, 25-20, and 25-18. Next they faced Central, where the Mavs dropped the first set 25-22, but then won the next three in a row with scores of 25-22, 25-18, and 25-23.

For their third round, the Mavs faced Nolensville to decide who would proceed to the winner’s bracket side of the championship round, where the Lady Mavs took their first loss of the tournament, losing all three sets 25-13, 25-18 and 25-15, before moving on to the losers’ bracket, where they faced Central once again.

For their second game against Central, the Lady Mavs won all three sets, winning the first set 25-17, and winning the second set 32-30 after Central pushed them to their absolute limits, pushing the set a full seven points past it’s usual score cap. Anderson County finished the third set 25-17 to put them into the Championship match against Nolensville.

Anderson County lost the match against Nolensville 1-3, being the only school that won a single set or scored more than 18 points in a set against them. Anderson County lost the first two sets 19-25 and 15-25 before rallying in the third to gain their only win of the match. They started out strong with an early lead and early momentum in the fourth, but, unfortunately, couldn’t repeat their feat in the third set, finishing the set 19-25, and the game 1-3.

Dail Cantrell, assistant coach of the Lady Mavs, said that they’re happy with how the tournament went, and congratulated Nolensville on their good play.

“I felt we had a great tournament. We had the momentum in the last set and their libero just played lights out and she really was the difference. Nolensville is obviously a triple AAA school playing AA, and they’ll actually be a triple AAA school next year.”

Cantrell said that, in his opinion, he thought Nolensville’s libero was what swayed the game in Nolensville’s favor.

“I thought we had a good game plan against Nolensville, and then their libero just played a statistically perfect game. They gave us a stat sheet afterwards and she finished with a 1.000, which is a perfect rating. I’ve never seen a defensive player take over a match like she took over that match. We were a better offensive team with Morgan [McMurray] and Erin [Cantrell] and Matti [Rowland], but this girl was everywhere. I think if you look at the game statistically, we were better offensively, and she just played the best match I’ve ever seen anyone play. I have to really give them credit.

“We came into the season with expectations knowing we were going to compete for a state title, and we were the only team to take a match from them. Nobody else had scored more than 16 points against them during the tournament, and they even beat Brentwood this year, who is the AAA State Champion.”

Cantrell spoke on the season as a whole, too, saying that he’s pleased with how it’s gone, and how the team is hopeful for their chances next year after the reclassification of some schools into AAA.

“I love the season. You figure this is our sixth state final and twelfth final four in 20 years and there’s no AA school that can say that. That’s going to a state final more than 20-percent of the time and going to the final four over 50-percent of the time, that speaks a lot about our program.

“We have a powerful team coming back. We’re returning the region MVP, returning Erin Cantrell, and we have probably the best group of freshmen we’ve ever had, so next year’s team I think has a better chance of winning the state championship than this year’s team because Nolensville won’t be there and a lot of the Tri-Cities teams moved up to AAA, so the traditional powerhouse teams aren’t there anymore.”

Cantrell said that, ultimately, though, it’s about the parents and the students, and none of this could have been done without them, and they’re all very grateful.

“I really want to thank the girls. We did not have a single player quit this year. We kept 24 players, which is the most we’ve ever kept, and that of course limits playing time, and they were all committed to what we were doing and I think you’ll see that pay off next year, because these freshmen got a lot of work in and they’ll be competing for spots. I want to thank the parents and the administrators. We could not have done all this without these parents, who were all wonderful.”