Perfect finish to a perfect season
Published 11:16 am Thursday, October 31, 2019
- The Lunenburg Middle School girls volleyball team celebrates after winning the 2019 Southside Middle School Conference Tournament for the first time ever. The Blue Devils went 17-0 this year, never dropping a set. Pictured are, from left, front row, Ellie Anderson, Mackenzie Bolling, Emily Kelley, Lydia Anderson, Makenzi Burch; back row, Head Coach Anna Bolling, AnGeLeKa White-Freeman, Hoku Chaney, Virginia Hooton, Kennedy Moody, Tristan Buchanan, Olivia Moses, Hailey Powers, Cayley Stokes, Amyra Watson and Coach MelbaDale Parrish.
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Lunenburg Middle School’s (LMS) girls volleyball team made school history this year with a season of epic proportions, defeating Powhatan Middle School to claim the program’s first Southside Middle School Conference Tournament championship, which capped a perfect 17-0 season in which the Blue Devils never dropped a single set.
“I was incredibly excited for the girls,” LMS Head Coach Anna Bolling said. “They are a great group that really worked hard all season as a team to get better every time that we played. They used practice time efficiently and took it very seriously and were always pushing each other to improve.”
Bolling noted that the LMS girls volleyball program has existed for four years. The Southside Middle School Conference is divided into East and West divisions, and a team must be either No. 1 or No. 2 in its division to reach the conference tournament.
“We have made it to the tournament each year and have even been the first-place regular season division winner before, but this is the first year that we have won the tournament,” the coach said.
The Blue Devils faced Amelia County Middle School in the tourney semifinals and won 3-0.
“We played Powhatan in the final (match) and also won 3-0, but the last (set) went 26-24 — definitely our tightest (set) all season,” Bolling said.
She noted that “not losing a set this year was unbelievable and very unprecedented. (It’s) just an amazing group of girls.”
The coach pointed to teamwork as the key to the Blue Devils’ tremendous success.
“They were such hard workers and just always played well as at team,” she said. “Volleyball is really a team sport, and they really pushed each other at practice to continue to get better.”
Bolling said the team will lose six key contributors after this year, as they are eighth-graders moving up to the next level.
“I know they are going to be great players at the high school, and we wish them all great luck,” she said. “We have a good group of sixth- and seventh-graders coming back, though, and are hoping to have a big turnout at tryouts as we keep building a program.”