In a nearly identical match to their regular season meeting on Sept.28 when Calloway County defeated Christian Fellowship 3-2, the Laker Lakers came out on top again in Monday’s five-set Fourth District Tournament semi-final 3-2 (25-23, 21-25, 23-25, 25-19, 15-10) over the Lady Eagles. They will advance to Saturday’s 1:00 pm District Championship game between the winner of the Marshall County/Murray game that will be played that same day at 11:00 am at Marshall County High School.
CFS played Monday’s game without veteran senior Emma Fletcher but put forth a great effort in their final game of the 2020 season and they finish with a record of 11-8.
CFS trailed 7-4 in the first set with some early match mistakes coming into play. A kill by Calloway County senior Anna Wilmurth put the Lady Lakers up 18-12. Settling into their game, CFS would cut it to four points at 21-17 and to one point at 23-22 but lost set one 25-23 on an out-of-bounds serve.
A nice sustained volley opened set two on a point for the Lady Eagles and they continued to add to their lead at 7-2, prompting Calloway Head Coach Lindsey Jones to call a time out. Out of the time out, the Lady Lakers scored the next three points to close the lead to 7-5. An ace by Jayden Jackson put CFS up 10-5 before a 4-0 Calloway run cut the lead to 10-9 with Head Coach Suzie Burnett needing a time out.
From there, the set was tied up seven times, the Lady Eagles getting some nice kills by sophomore Lillian Burnett. A kill by Burnett tied the game at 21-21 and she would finish out the set at the serving line with the final four points for the 25-21 win to tie the match at one game each.
Set three was much like set two with 10 ties throughout. CFS managed to stretch out a 14-8 lead following two straight kills from Burnett before the fifth tie of the set came at 15-15 and the ties and lead changes continued until at 24-23, CFS recorded an ace to close out set three 25-23 and take a 2-1 lead.
Leading 9-8 in set four, Calloway out-scored CFS 8-1 to stretch it to 17-9 and take their largest lead of the entire match at 22-13 on a kill by Adison Hicks. CFS cut the lead back to four points at 22-18 before the Lady Lakers rolled on to win 25-19 and tie the match at 2-2.
In the tie-breaker set, Calloway went up 5-0 quickly on a couple of kills and a successful block before CFS earned their first point. CFS battled back to trail 10-8 but Calloway finished out on a 5-2 run to take the tie-breaker set 15-10 and earn the 3-2 win.
Lillian Burnett led CFS with 18 kills, 17 digs and two blocks. Jayden Jackson had 14 digs and three kills, Gracie Howard 13 digs and five kills, Cameron Slayden 10 digs and two aces and Brecksyn Etheridge 17 assists and six digs.
The loss ends the Lady Eagles run of three straight district titles and five straight appearances in the First Region Tournament. Calloway improves to 5-5 and earned a spot in the First Region Tournament.
