Quartet of seniors helped guide Lady Dragons’ best season ever
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Clinton features four seniors, including middle blocker Darbi Brummett, outside hitter Riley Owens, right side player Tomi Taylor and defensive specialist Zavie Ford. - Tony Cox
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Clinton’s Elliee Murrell gets ready to block a West High shot during last Tuesday’s senior night game at CHS. - Tony Cox
Clinton High School’s volleyball team is in the midst of its best season in program history.
The Lady Dragons, who recently completed their regular season with a 20-25, 25-23, 25-16 victory over Knoxville West on Tuesday, Sept. 26 at the Don W. Lockard Gymnasium, will now open the District 3-AAA Tournament Wednesday at Wildcat Arena in Oak Ridge.
Clinton (24-10) will have a first-round bye after finishing atop the league’s regular-season standings after losing just one set and amassing a perfect 12-0 district record.
The Lady Dragons’ final regular-season match was a non-district tilt, but the team honored its senior class before defeating the Lady Rebels.
Clinton’s roster features four seniors, including middle blocker Darbi Brummett, outside hitter Riley Owens, right side player Tomi Taylor, and defensive specialist Zavie Ford.
The quartet began their high school career under longtime Coach Susan Zellner, who led the Lady Dragons to a regular-season championship in the mid-2000s. They finished runner-up in the postseason tournament to Karns, which would go on to the state tournament.
After Zellner retired, Lorri Johnson was tapped to take the reins of the CHS program.
Johnson had previous coaching stops at Knoxville Christian School, Soddy-Daisy and Knox Central before landing at Clinton Middle School, where she coached this group of seniors as eighth graders.
“It’s never easy to get a new coach,” Johnson said. “But it really helped that they knew me from the middle school, and that they wanted to build a program.
“I had to change the culture, and everybody bought in right away.”
Clinton’s players wanted to be winners on the court.
And since Johnson arrived, they’ve shown steady improvement, culminating in this year’s successes.
But Johnson wants more for her players.
“I wanted them to have options and we’ve given them to them,” she said. “All four of these girls could go on to play in college if they wanted to.
“Zavie is looking to do that, and Tomi is going to play softball in college. Darbi and Riley aren’t going to play in college. They’re going to concentrate on their academics and their careers, but athletically and intellectually, they could play if they wanted to.”