Walton's "Fight And Focus Mode" Keeps Title Defense Alive, Defeats Hillgrove 3-1
On Tuesday, the defending Georgia High School Association Class 7A volleyball state champs, the Walton Raiders, were back in action, continuing their title defense on the road at the Hillgrove Hawks. Despite a close battle in the opening set, the Raiders close out with a 25-22 win to take a 1-0 match lead and in set two, play with a little more dominance as they would win the second set 25-19.
Down 0-2 in the match and on the verge of being swept, Hillgrove came out with aggressive play in set three as they would jump out to a 4-0 lead. And although the Raiders would fight to keep themselves in the set, closing the gap to get within two of the Hawks a couple of times in the set, but the Hawks, having been giving the Raiders trouble all throughout the set, would go on to win set three 25-17.
Having forced a fourth set, the Hawks came out with the same energy and once again jumped out to a big lead as they would go up 8-2 after an ace by Ella Giodano. However, the defending champs, proving to be battle tested, would gather themselves and settle in as their serves and middle protection all seemed to get back on track in route to a remarkable comeback capped by an ace on the serve by Mary Neal, who finished with 18 kills, to win the set 28-26 and taking the match 3-1.
“We were having a horrible time with our middle,” Walton coach, Susan Fitzgerald said after the match. Fitzgerald credited Hillgrove’s Gabi Fullwood for her play and the problems she caused the Raiders throughout the match. “She was on fire and we weren’t locating the ball to keep them out of system so they couldn’t run the middle. So once we went back to that original game plan and kind of pushed the nerves aside, and went into fight mode and focus mode, that helped us keep the ball away from them running the middle,” Fitzgerald said.
With the win, Walton will head to the final four, where they will face a tough Lambert Longhorns team, who they defeated in the elite eight round of the playoffs last season and Fitzgerald says that there are a few areas the Raiders will need to clean up ahead of that match. “We have to work on defending the middle, a little tougher serving. I thing we were too careful with our serving and just varying the offense a little bit more,” Fitzgerald continued, stating that she believe the team fell into some of their old habits and that is something she wants them to move away from.
