By By BRUCE HIXON Sports Editor
Even though their first victory at the regional tournament level will have to wait until another day, the T.R. Miller Lady Tigers volleyball team came away with quite a learning experience at Saturday's Class 3A Regional held at Clarke County.
T.R. Miller nearly knocked off Region 4 champion Headland in the opening round, but eventually succumbed 26-24, 19-25, 25-23.
"We had a great opportunity to win that match, but couldn't quite pull it out. For having to play an Area champ, Headland was probably as good a draw as we could get. We matched up really well with them," T.R. Miller coach Sharon Peacock said.
Erin Byrne came up with five aces, four digs, three assisted blocks, a solo block and a kill for T.R. Miller. Shandreka Foster posted a team high seven kills with three solo and three assisted blocks. Courtney Krehbiel put away four kills and added a combined four solo and assisted blocks. She also dished up two service aces.
Terri Lynne Peacock dug up nine balls and added seven assists, while Vivian Muth had four digs and five assists. Rebecca Scott notched three kills.
The loss sent T.R. Miller to the elimination bracket where it was ousted by Montgomery Catholic 25-16, 25-11. Montgomery Catholic eventually finished second in the tournament and grabbed a state berth along with champion Montgomery Academy.
"Montgomery Catholic had a lot of size up front. They didn't jump that well against us, but that size caused us some problems," Peacock said.
Peacock had eight digs with an assist, while Emily Layton had four digs with three assists. Byrne and Foster both had three kills and each factored into three blocks. Krehbiel had an assisted block, Muth had two digs with an assist and Scott had a dig and an assist.
"Regardless of what happened, it was a great learning experience for our returning players. I think they saw some teams at the regional level they could compete with and even beat. They also saw the top caliber teams they have to go through in order to reach the state tournament in the future," Peacock said.
T.R. Miller concluded its season with an 8-17 record.
"We had hoped to have a winning season when we started. That didn't happen although we broke our school record for wins in a season and got our first regional berth," Peacock said. "We've got a lot work to do between now and next season. One of the biggest areas where we need to get better is serve/receive, but we just have to get better all the way around. Like last year, there were a lot of matches where we had a chance to win but didn't. Next year we need to take that next step and find a way to win those matches."