Volleyball wins district championships
photo by Brett Belich
Setter Emma Greiner set outside hitter Brooke Stephens who got the kill. The team won the match against Seminole 3-0.
It was game five in the district finals and the team was up 15-14 against Winter Park. The setter for Winter Park dumped a surprise set over the net. Libero Mayte Camacho dove and set the ball to setter Brielle Mullen, who set outside hitter Abby Mas for the kill to an outside corner, winning the set 16-14. The team rushed the court, celebrating the district championships on Oct. 20, pulling out another five-set victory, 3-2.
“It feels incredible to win the district championships,” Camacho said. “We did not win last year, so it’s great we got the chance to do it this year.”
Camacho had 34 digs during the game and Mas had 16 kills, while outside hitter Brooke Stephens had 25 kills.
The game was back and forth with the girls winning the first set 25-21, and Winter Park winning the second set 27-25. The game continued on like this with the team winning the third set 25-19, and Winter Park winning the fourth set 26-24.
“We prepared for the game by talking about how we need to be able to finish,” coach Juanita Hitt said. “When we are up in games, we have a habit of getting too confident, but the girls did a great job finishing this game.”
The previous night, the girls played the semi-final district championships against Timber Creek, the tournament host, winning 3-0. The set scores were 25-20, 25-17, and 25-15.
“We played very well in the Timber Creek game because we went in with a good mindset,” defensive specialist Madison Schwartz said.
Timber Creek and Winter Park were both previously seeded ahead of Hagerty. Winter Park was ranked first, Timber Creek was ranked second, and the girls were ranked third in the district.
The team was seeded third because of some unexpected regular season losses, and so they focused on their mindset before the district tournament started.
“When we start to lose during games, we have a habit of getting down on ourselves and not being able to turn it back around,” Schwartz said. “We were mainly focused on trying to keep our attitudes up the whole game and it worked.”
The team will start regional playoffs by playing Bartram Trails at home on Oct. 26. Tickets can be found on gofan.com.
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