By By BRUCE HIXON – Sports Editor
What faint hopes the Jefferson Davis Community College Lady Warhawks volleyball team had of qualifying for the Alabama Community College Conference state tournament were blown away when they dropped a 30-22, 30-12, 30-20 home court decision to the Northwest Shoals Lady Patriots Wednesday.
Actually qualifying for the state tournament has not been the Lady Warhawks top goal as of late. It has been trying to win a game. Any game.
Wednesday's loss was JDCC's 16th straight and dropped its record to 3-25.
The Lady Warhawks fought an uphill battle throughout the match, as they only had a couple of brief leads.
Their best run of the opening set came after when they faced a 19-11 deficit. A defensive point along with three service points which included an ace by Jessica Stafford and a kill by Ashley Willoughby trimmed Northwest Shoals' advantage to 19-15.
That rally quickly fizzled when the Lady Patriots reeled off a defensive point, a pair of aces and two additional points that quickly bumped the lead up to 24-15.
Northwest Shoals already had a firm 20-12 lead in set two before it closed it out with the final 10 points.
JDCC' best chance to break through came in the third set. The Lady Warhawks had a 10-9 lead after a missed serve by the Lady Patriots and trailed just 19-17 after a block for a point by Lashundra Clausell on a service by Tiffany Andersen.
After that JDCC managed just three defensive points, while Northwest Shoals strung together service strings of five and four points to close things out.
The Lady Warhawks dropped a 30-14 30-18, 30-16 decision at Gadsden State Tuesday.
Andersen had four kills, three blocks and a pair of aces to lead JDCC's attack. Clausell matched Andersen's team high four kills.
JDCC, which played at Bevill State-Fayette Friday, plays its final home game of the season Tuesday when it hosts Wallace State-Hanceville at 6 p.m.