The Habersham Central Volleyball team is set to play their first region games of the season, and they’ll do so on a high note with a 10-3 record on the season and a current 3-match winning streak.
“I feel like we’ve been more consistent.” Lady Raiders coach Lindsay Herrin said, “We’ve just been playing really good volleyball. Our girls are becoming more well rounded. We’ve got a bunch of individuals that are figuring out the best way they can contribute to the team and that’s really starting to show as of late.”
Their one loss in the last seven games came at home against Dawson County on Sept. 2, a week after the Lady Raiders beat them 3-2 in an intense, back-and-forth game.
“We just didn’t really play that great. When they came to us at home, we just didn’t pass the ball very well. We had a lot of balls that we would normally get to hit the floor,” Herrin said. “Offensively we weren’t nearly as productive as when we went to play them the week prior. All of those things add up, and I think they came in with a little more motivation to try and redeem themselves from us beating them at their home place, and they were able to do that.”
That loss gave the Lady Raiders a sense of where they can further improve and motivated them to play with more consistency, and those improvements have helped lead to their winning streak. According to Herrin, they’ve spent a lot of practice time working on taking advantage of free balls – a ball that is returned over the net with a pass or a bump, which is much easier to stop than a spike – that the Lady Raiders didn’t capitalize on as much as they would like.
The first region games of the season begin next week on Tuesday, Sept. 14, against Shiloh at 5 p.m. and Lanier at 7 p.m.
“Us and Lanier have pretty heated games.” Herrin said, “Every time we play them, it’s intense… Shiloh is coached by a bunch of people who care and want to see them do well, and of course they have some good athletes. But if we can come away with two region wins to start off region play, we’ll set us up pretty well for the region tournament.”
INDIANS 2, RAIDERS 0
The Lady Raiders lost in straight sets to the Lumpkin County Indians. Habersham Central lost the first set 25-15, and dropped the second set 25-20.
WAR EAGLES 2, RAIDERS 0
The Chestatee War Eagles beat Habersham Central 2-0 Thursday night. The Lady Raiders were defeated in the first set by a score of 25-10, and lost the second set 25-14.