The Brownwood Lady Lions scored the first six points of the opening set, the first five of the second, and the first three points of the third set, but were unable to finish as well as they started as the Graham Lady Blues collected a 25-17, 25-21, 27-25 District 6-4A volleyball victory at Warren Gym Friday.
“Graham did a really good job staying in system the majority of the time,” said Lady Lions first-year head coach Kristen Grimes. “Their libero was all over the court. We were trying to get the ball away from her, but she was taking a lot of passes out of serve receive and it put them in system a lot, which put a lot of pressure on our blockers to be disciplined. I thought we did an OK job with blocking, but they did a fantastic job of running their system. Defensively, I thought we did a heck of a job. We’re picking balls up off the floor, but again it’s coming down to us rallying with them, but we’re not winning the rallies. That’s what it comes down to because we fought hard and played hard.”
Aniah Hines led the offensive attack for Brownwood with 13 kills followed by six from Hannah Deen, three each from Demayha Hooker and Kaydence Chandler, two by Jentry Coalson, and one from Bellah Stokes.
Icess Hall distributed all 28 Brownwood assists, while Hines, Chandler and Maddi Scott served aces.
On the defensive end, the Lady Lions received 19 digs from Scott along with 14 from Hall, 11 from Sara Stubblefield, 10 from Lanie Johnson, seven from Hooker, five from Hines, four from both Coalson and Chandler, two from Addy Huerta, and one from Grace Sparks.
At the net, Chandler tallied six blocks for the second match in a row followed by Hines and Hooker with one apiece.
The Lady Lions (15-16, 1-5) are back in action at 6 p.m. Tuesday at district front-runner Brock.
