Hanging tough, Farragut volleyballers fall twice
When Andre Alves took the reins for the Farragut High School volleyball program, he knew he would have to oversee a rebuilding project. That’s a hard task for any new head coach, but the Lady Admirals’ early-season schedule couldn’t have been much tougher.
“We have to rebuild the program,” Alves said after Farragut dropped its second match in as many nights.
Farragut battled valiantly but lost a four-set match to Anderson County 25-23, 25-23, 17-25, 25-15 Thursday, Aug. 17, in FHS’s Lynn E. Sexton Gymnasium.
That loss occurred about 24 hours after Farragut dropped a best-of-three match to Knoxville Catholic 28-26, 21-25, 25-23 Wednesday, Aug. 16, at FHS.
Last Thursday’s match versus ACHS was an exercise in frustration fo the Lady Admirals. Farragut had leads in all four sets and held commanding advantages in three of those four.
Alves attributed his squad’s struggles to not putting away its opponents when in control of the match to unforced errors, particularly in the Lady Ads’ service game.
“The unforced errors are killing us and that’s something that I’ve got to fix,” the coach said. “We get the rock up the hill and then we commit unforced errors and the rock rolls all the way back down the hill.”
Farragut led 14-8 in the inaugural set thanks to a long service run by Tori McNair, which included a pair of aces. One ace put FHS up by six, forcing Anderson County head coach Jayme Smith to call timeout.
Farragut would go on to hold a 19-15 advantage before the Lady Mavericks would claw their way back into the set, tying the set at 20-20 before the Lady Admirals took a 22-20 lead on an ace by McNair.
The Lady Mavericks would score five of the next six points as they would take advantage of Farragut’s miscues.
“We missed 13 serves tonight and you can miss serves and expect to win,” Alves said.
Farragut was competitive in each game. Therefore, Alves couldn’t fault his team’s effort.
“They battled all the way until the end,” he said. “Anderson County has a good team and they’re extremely well-coached. “Jayme and (assistant coach) Dail (Cantrell) do a great job.”
Elsa Morrison led Farragut’s attack, finishing with 15 kills. She also added nine assists. Loryn Neeley added eight kills and three aces. Maggie Hughes finished with six kills and Avery Mandl served up 10 aces.
Against Knoxville Catholic, Morrison recorded nine kills while Neeley had seven. Hughes added four and Paisy White finished with three.
Alves’ first two matches were against two of the most storied programs in East Tennessee. KCHS has been a regular at the Division II-AA state championships in Murfreesboro, while Anderson County expects to be at the midstate in October every year. The Lady Mavericks reached the Class AA state sectionals after winning their district and region tournaments in 2022.
