A young team with potential

Lady Dragons want to build on success

August 17, 2022 by Ken Lay

When Lorri Johnson took the reins for the Clinton High School volleyball team in spring 2021, she knew that she would have a rebuilding job.

Last fall, the Lady Dragons enjoyed modest success as they went 13-13 and finished third in the District 3-AAA regular-season standings. Clinton’s postseason stay, however, was short as it was eliminated early in the district tournament.

“We finished third in the district in the regular season, but we lost our district tournament match,” Johnson said. “We really could’ve won that, but we lost in five (sets) and we lost it on a service error.”

The Lady Dragons lost three seniors to graduation following last season. But Johnson is looking for big things even though she has a young team.

“Our team is young and we’ll be looking for consistency,” she said. “I’m telling people that we’re 365 days better than we were this time last year.

“By next summer, I want us to be able to go down and compete with Brentwood and some of the Murfreesboro schools. Those are big schools. They have two or three thousand people in them. The road to the state championship goes through Brentwood. I think they’ve won eight (state titles) in a row.”

While Johnson’s primary objective is seeing her team improve on the court, the program is also making other changes to boost the morale.

“We’re getting a new locker room finished,” Johnson said. “The girls haven’t seen it or been in there yet, because we’re waiting to get the cubbies put in. We’ll have our new uniforms here soon and everything is starting to look a whole lot different around here.

“We’re getting a fresh look to everything.”

New uniforms and new facilities are great. For the Lady Dragons, however, it doesn’t stop there.

“We’re doing what we have to do to become a competitive (Class) AAA program,” Johnson said. “We’re getting good players from (Clinton) Middle School and we’re both working together.”

This year’s Lady Dragons’ roster features a pair of seniors in opposite player/defensive specialist Oriana Altum and outside hitter Brooklyn Blisard.

“I have two seniors and they’re working hard,” Johnson said. “They’re great kids and they’ll provide us with maturity.”

Other key players include: Mia Baylis (junior, right side/middle blocker); Darbi Brummett (junior, middle blocker/outside hitter); Zavie Ford (junior, defensive specialist/outside hitter); Riley Owens (a junior opposite and outside player who joins the fray for Clinton this season); Tomi Taylor, a junior setter and opposite, who is injured; McKenzie Crisp (sophomore, libero/defensive specialist); Ellie Hatmaker (sophomore, right side/defensive specialist); Kiara Horning (sophomore, opposite/middle blocker); Ellie Murrell (sophomore, middle blocker); Keagan Skaggs (sophomore, setter); Lilly Starr (sophomore, libero/defensive specialist) and Lanee Carmichael (freshman, outside hitter/middle blocker).

Expectations are high as the Lady Dragons continue on the rebuilding path.

“Our goal is to finish in the Top Two in our district and make it to the region,” Johnson said. “We are young, but we’re continuing to build depth as we work together with the middle school.

“I saw that in (the mid-2000s) and in 2013, that we were the district tournament runner-up, but I haven’t found any region tournament plaques.”