Lady Choctaws sweep Creek Wood to advance to state championship game

The Dyer County Lady Choctaws celebrate their three-set sweep of Creekwood on Thursday night which put the team in it's first-ever TSSAA Class AA Volleyball State Championship Game.

Photo/Jason Peevyhouse

By JASON PEEVYHOUSE

Sports Editor

After falling earlier in the day to Valor College Prep, Dyer County's volleyball team will play for the TSSAA Class AA State Championship for the first time as the Lady Choctaws bounced back to sweep Creek Wood in three sets on Thursday night in the consolation bracket final.

Dyer County senior Briley Abair looks to set the ball for the Lady Choctaw offense during the orange and white's state semifinal win on Thursday at Siegel High School in Murfreesboro.

Photo/Jason Peevyhouse

Dyer County Head Coach Shanna O'Bright, who has coached the Lady Choctaws into this same game on two prior occasions since 2021, said it was awesome to see the ball hit the floor for the final point of the third set.

“There's now way to describe it,” O'Bright said. “After we lost this afternoon, we kind of reset and regrouped.

“I told them everything that we want to do is still right there. It's within our reach and within our hands – like Teagan (Reed) said. We just had to forget about it, play our game, run our offense, and just go.”

The Lady Choctaws stormed out of the gates with kills from Rylee Key and Emma Wray which set the tone of a 10-2 run where Teagan Reed added two kills as well. After a Key tip and an Evie Rogers ace moments later, the Lady Choctaws were off to another run which took them to an 18-9 lead after an Ava Huke kill. Dyer County continued to control the pace as another Rogers ace ended the set in a 25-13 Dyer County win.

In their third game of the day, Creek Wood still had some fight left and lead through much of the early goings despite kills from Reed and Key. But, a Wray kill and a Key block put Dyer County on top of the first time in the set. With an ace from Rogers and kills from Huke and Reed, the Lady Choctaws took a 24-13 lead. Creek Wood fought off match point for a few serves before a Huke kill gave Dyer County the 25-18 win in the second set.

The Lady Choctaws jumped out to an early lead but Creek Wood continued to keep its hopes alive and lead as late at 12-11. But, a Kierstyn Ray ace was followed by a tip and a kill from Key to put the Lady Choctaws on top. Reed and Erin Foster added kills then, moments later, Huke and Wray contributed more kills to get the Lady Choctaws to set point. Creek Wood again fought off a couple points before a Key kill ended the game with a 25-19 win to seal the sweep and set up a rematch with Valor College Prep on Friday.

O'Bright added she was so happy for her team following the win which put them in the program's first state championship team.

“This group of seniors has been working for this for four years,” the Lady Choctaw head coach pointed out. “They've been here for four years. Been here and been here. I'm excited for them and hope they can see it through.”

O'Bright said her team running its offense was the key difference between the two games on Thursday.

“We ran our offense in this game and we struggled to run our offense in the game against Valor Prep,” she said. “We struggled to get the balls up. They are a very solid team. They've offensive. Their serves are lethal and we struggled with getting the ball up and getting out offense going. That's something we've got to figure out before tomorrow.”

The Lady Choctaws play Valor College Prep, who defeated Dyer County in three sets earlier on Thursday, in the TSSAA Class AA Championship Game on Friday at 10 a.m. at Rockvale High School in Murfreesboro.

“We saw them today and we know what they have,” O'Bright explained. “We need to concentrate on cleaning up the game on our side of the net.

“I think we spent too much time worry about what they could do and not enough about what we could do. We played back on our heels a little bit. Hopefully, we can fix that for tomorrow.”