The Lady Wildcats Volleyball fall to Knox Catholic

The #7 Oak Ridge High School Lady Wildcat Volleyball Team took their first non-tournament loss of the season when they traveled to Knoxville Catholic on Tuesday night. “Sports are weird because a match like this is simultaneously encouraging and disappointing,” said Oak Ridge Head Coach David Kolodney. “I thought we played very well the first 2 sets against a team that is always great.” The ‘Cats kept it competitive in the first two sets, only to fall off in the third to get swept in straight sets (21-25, 22-25, 13-25). “We had a couple of poorly timed metal lapses that cost us those sets, but otherwise it was exactly what a match between two equal teams should look like,” continued Kolodney. The match had the look of highly competitive volleyball where neither team was able to pull off a lengthy scoring run, but Catholic had the edge with Side Outs and it was enough to put the Lady ‘Cats away in the first two sets. “I’m encouraged by what we did early and that only reinforced what I already knew about the abilities of this team,” Kolodney continued. “But we need to be able to fix those mental mistakes to compete against the other elite teams in the area.” Oak Ridge was led by Sophomore Setter/Right Side Piper Suddeth who led the team in Digs (12) and Assists (16). Junior Ainsley Patrick led the team in Kills (17), and Junior Brenna Allred picked up 2 Blocks. Genevieve Krass was named Player of the Match by Kolodney with her 11 Digs, 2 Aces, and perfect serving. “Catholic is a really good hitting team and that means they’re going to be able to find holes in the block and hit their spots. That puts a ton of pressure on our libero and she (Krass) rose to challenge,” Kolodney said referring to his Junior Libero.

The Lady Wildcats fall to 9-2 on the season, 4-0 in District play. Oak Ridge will be back in action Thursday night as they travel to Powell to place their unblemished District record on the line.