Pine Tree Sweeps Tyler Lee, New Diana to Improve to 7-1

LONGVIEW -- Pine Tree has had a penchant for spreading the ball around to numerous hitters during volleyball coach Leven Barker's tenure.

After Tuesday's tri-match with Tyler Lee and New Diana, the 2012 Lady Pirates appear well on their way to living up to that reputation. Senior setter Emily Shelton dished out 33 assists and 24 assists, respectively, in Pine Tree's two matches, which were sweeps of Tyler Lee (30-28, 25-18, 25-19) and New Diana (250-19, 25-16, 25-17) at the Pirate Center.

Three Lady Pirates recorded seven or more kills against Lee, while five had four or more kills against New Diana.

"A lot of our hitters have stepped up, so I feel comfortable spreading the ball out to them," Shelton said.

Sophomore Sky Holmes had 11 kills, one block, and three aces against Lee, while seniors Dee Patterson and McKaylla Baylor had nine and seven kills, respectively. Holmes added five kills, one block, and one ace against New Diana. Baylor had six kills and one block in that match, while senior Mackenzie Richardson had five kills. Patterson and junior Jonquil Fisher combined for eight kills and three blocks in the nightcap.

Shelton also led the blocking charge. She had five of her team's 10 blocks in the win against New Diana (7-3).

"Every day in practice we've worked on that, our outside blockers getting set and going up together," she said. "We're better than I thought we were going to be. Instead of being the big team, we're scrappy."

Pine Tree (7-1) outlasted Tyler Lee in Game 1 of the night's first match, then overcame a 16-14 Game 2 deficit to close that set on an 11-2 run to go up 2-0. Pine Tree jumped to a 21-11 Game 3 lead before completing the sweep.

Pine Tree senior Darby Davis had a match-high 13 digs, while junior Kennedy Sampson and senior Angel Jordan had 10 apiece.

Lee's Alexis Crowder had six kills and two blocks, while Jaina Giddens added six kills. Rebekah Bowden had five kills and two blocks. Melissa Menard led Lee (5-6) with 14 assists, and Chelsea Geter had eight. Caroline Lynch recorded three kills against Pine Tree.

Pine Tree closed Games 1 and 2 of its night-ending sweep of New Diana with 8-2 runs for a 2-0 advantage. The Lady Pirates built a 20-11 Game 3 lead to finish the sweep.

New Diana's Courtney Rogers had six kills, one block, one assist, and one ace in the loss to Pine Tree, while Cheyenne Spell added six kills, four assists, and two aces. Madison Sampson led New Diana with 13 assists. Bailee Birdsong had four kills one two aces, and Jessica Hampton had four kills and one block.

Pine Tree travels to the Wills Point Tournament on Friday and Saturday. New Diana plays in the Overton Tournament starting Thursday. Tyler Lee hosts Rusk on Thursday.

New Diana holds off Tyler Lee, 3-1

New Diana built a 2-0 match advantage and closed Game 4 with a 13-2 run to beat Tyler Lee 25-20, 25-20, 24-26, 25-11 at Pine Tree's Pirate Center in the middle match of Tuesday's tri-match.

Courtney Rogers had 13 kills, one block, and five aces, while Cheyenne Spell added nine kills, nine assists, and three aces. Madison Sampson had 26 assists.

"We've made some changes to our lineup and even changed positions for some of our players, so we're still learning our roles and where to be and when to be there," said New Diana coach Lisa Rockhill. "We had some miscommunication being out of position in one rotation and it cost us at the end of (Game 3), but everything that we saw was fixable."

Jessica Hampton had eight kills and three aces, and Bailee Birdsong added seven kills. Christy Hjorth had two blocks.

Alexis Crowder led Tyler Lee with nine kills. Kenshai Moseley was next with eight. Melissa Menard led Lee with 16 assists, while Chelsea Geter had 10 assists and two aces. Jaina Giddens had six kills and one block. Libero Taylor Winchester led Lee defensively and also had two assists and one ace. Rebekah Bowden chipped in with three kills and one block, and Caroline Lynch had three kills.