AHSAA REGIONAL VOLLEYBALL: PCA survives to advance; ACA's season ends
PCA’s Brylee Byrd and Avery Rogers collide on return during the Panthers’ match at the Cramton Bowl Multiplex on Thursday. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
The final match of the day had a much different feeling on Thursday.
A year ago, the final match for Prattville Christian Academy came in the area tournament semifinals against eventual state champion Trinity, ending the Panthers’ season and snapping a string of nine super regional appearances. For the first time since the super regional format was introduced in 2012, the Panthers would not get a chance to compete for a berth in the state tournament.
On Thursday, PCA (34-18) survived a fifth set with Mobile Christian, then blasted Thomasville in a second-round meeting to earn the program its fourth appearance in the state tournament. The top four teams will battle on Friday at 10 a.m. and again at 1 p.m. for seeding, but PCA will join Ashford, Houston Academy and St. Luke’s Episcopal in the state tournament next week in Birmingham.
“This is a much better feeling than last year, for sure,” PCA coach Kaylon Cantrell said. “We knew it would be a tough road to get to state, but the girls showed up today. They played well. It’s a good feeling to know that we made it to state.”
After winning the first set against Mobile Christian 27-25, the Panthers lost the next two, 25-17 and 25-22, putting their dreams in jeopardy. PCA rallied to tie the Leopards 25-18, then won the fifth set 15-13 to advance. In the second round, PCA rolled past Thomasville 25-8, 25-18 and 25-23 to earn a trip to Birmingham.
“Last year, I think, was a big motivator for us this year, to figure out a way to make it to the state tournament,” senior Hannah Jones said. “It just gave us more fuel to come into this super regional and push hard and play for each other to make it to state.”
For the Panthers, Baylee Rogers had 67 assists, two kills, 12 digs and four aces, Jones had 36 kills, an assist, 10 digs, three blocks and three aces, Emma Cate Carter had 14 kills, five digs, two blocks and three aces, Coco Thomas had 11 kills, six digs, five blocks and seven aces, Sally Swindall had seven kills, two digs and a pair of blocks, Avery Rogers had 30 digs, two assists and two aces, Leah Cate Wilson had a kill and four blocks, Natalee Wheeler had 20 digs and four aces and Brylee Byrd had 11 digs and two aces.
After starting the first three weeks of the season with 12 losses in the first 20 games, PCA has now won 10 of 11 over the last three weeks, with the only loss at the hands of 4A Super Regional champion Catholic.
“We’re playing really well right now,” Cantrell said. “We started a little rough. We had a really tough schedule at the beginning of the season with some really tough tournaments. Our record didn’t look great for a while, but over the last couple of weeks I feel like we’ve really pulled it together and started working well together as a team. We’re peaking at the right time.”
The Panthers showed their grit in the third set against Thomasville, trailing the Tigers late by as many as five points before scoring the last four in the set to win 25-23.
“Being down was a motivator, picking each other up,” Jones said. “Coach challenged us to push each other in that set and I think we definitely pushed each other.”
PCA will face Ashford in a semifinal matchup on Friday at 10 a.m. and will play again at 1 p.m., either in the championship round or the consolation round.
ACA eliminated
After a three-year absence, Alabama Christian Academy made a return to the South Super Regional, although the Eagles would have wanted to make the stay a little longer.
The program that finished second in the regionals in 2016 and 2017 and finished third in 2018 couldn’t get out of the area the next three years, but finally made a return to the regionals on Thursday with a first-round matchup against St. Luke’s Episcopal.
“We haven’t been to regionals in three seasons, so to be here was a goal of ours from the beginning of the season, to get to regionals and compete,” ACA first-year coach Amber Hogan said. “We’re here and competing against one of the best in the state in 3A.”
St. Luke’s got 22 kills from Haley Patterson and swept the best-of-five series 25-11, 25-10 and 29-15, ending the Eagles’ season. It certainly didn’t help an inexperienced squad to go up against one of the state’s best 3A programs in the first round.
“One thing we’ve talked about is how we approach situations,” Hogan said. “In life, you can approach situations in one of two ways: you can approach it as a problem or approach it as an opportunity. We knew it was going to be a battle, but our job was to step into the battlefield and approach it as an opportunity. And that’s what the girls did.”
ACA (14-24) loses talented setter Alyson Thornton along with Victoria Keller but the rest of the team will return next season with some playing experience in the super regionals.
“It was massive,” Hogan said. “When you’re only graduating two seniors and you have a loaded junior class and a good healthy sophomore class … it was awesome. For them to have a taste of this and see what they’re capable of in the future, it was a great moment.”
The experience was invaluable for Hogan as well as she attempts to rebuild the ACA program with perennial volleyball heavyweights Catholic, Trinity, Montgomery Academy and St. James in her conference and Prattville Christian Academy in her area.
“The best volleyball, in my opinion, in the state is in the city of Montgomery,” Hogan said. “You have constant state champs, runners-up. The private schools as a hub, we’re just competitive. So our mission all year long was to shake things up and make people notice us. And this team did a really good job of getting noticed by the way they competed against these championship-level teams.”