AVCA Small College Beach Championships Next for Improved Lady Flyers
As they entertained St. Andrews University in a beach volleyball match on Tuesday, it would have been understandable if the minds of members of the Sandhills Community College team were on Tavares, FL where they are scheduled to arrive late Wednesday afternoon.
The Lady Flyers showed marked improvement while falling 4-1 and 3-2 in the double match to a Lady Knights squad that defeated them 5-0, 5-0 in Laurinburg three weeks ago.
Camryn Lowe and Kaitlyn Locklear extended their winning streak as pairs to five in the No. 3 doubles with 2-0 and 2-0 wins over their Knight counterparts.
Coach Alicia Riggan's squad leaves for central Florida at the break of dawn on Wednesday for the AVCA Small College Beach Championships held at Hickory Point Beach.
For the first time, the tournament that is played on 21 courts, has incorporated an NJCAA division made up of six teams. Including the NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III, and NAIA tournaments, a total of 450 matches will be played.
The Lady Flyers are in Pool 1 with State College of Florida and Lake Sumter State College (FL), and will play four matches over two days.
The winners of Pool 1, and a Pool 2 that includes St. Johns River State (FL), Spartanburg Methodist and Bryant and Stratton (WI), will play for the championship on Friday.
The results can be followed via https://floridaregion.bracketpal.com/tournament/46
"It's an honor and it's exciting," Riggan said of her team being a part of the tournament expansion. "To me, we've always said that the program goes beyond the courts and the beach. It's about creating experiences for these girls. It's going to be a great time."
With Riggan often employing dual setters indoors, Lowe and Locklear accounted for 85 per cent of the team's assists and were also two of the team's top servers.
They were in command most of the way after squeaking out a 25-23 win in their first set of the day.
"I think Camryn and I get along really well", Locklear, a Purnell Swett High School grad, who will be making her first visit to Florida, said. "When we won our first match we got confident and just took it and ran with it. We're having a good time."
Riggan wondered at first whether it would work, putting two setters together.
"They give great sets to each other," the coach said. "They've been winning since they became a pair and seem to be jelling really well."
The Flyers' No. 1 pair of Lexi Allen and L'Asia Jackson, the No. 2 of KeKe Lawrence and Mya Mallard, and the No. 4 of Maddie Harris and Abby Quick were each defeated 2-0, 2-0.
In the No. 5, Kayla Sadowski and JaLasia Ray dropped their first match 2-0, before coming to life and grabbing a 2-0 victory in the second.
Riggan was impressed by the their energy.
"They really jumped on that second game," the coach said. "It was 14-1 and JaLasia was still serving."
According to Ray, she and Sadowski were thinking about teammate Mackenzie Swett who was Ray's partner the week before at the Spartanburg Methodist Invitational before suffering a concussion from a fall. Swett has not recovered sufficiently to make the trip to Florida.
"In the second match we decided no matter how tired we are, let's give it our all with every point," Ray, a product of Hoke County High School said. "That's what we did and it showed in the result. We did it for Mackenzie."
The Lady Flyers will get another shot at St. Andrews when the teams meet again in Laurinburg for a double match on April 21.
C. Bergmann