Hilton Head Christian volleyball falls to Spartanburg Christian in SCISA 2A championship

Hilton Head Christian volleyball team’s bid for a state championship fell short against Spartanburg Christian on Tuesday.

Spartanburg Christian claimed its third straight SCISA 2A state championship with a 25-19, 25-23, 25-16 victory over Hilton Head Christian at Cardinal Newman High School.

“We’ve been down a few times with some really good teams this year and we were able to pull it out,” Eagles head coach Steve DeSimone said. “Tonight we just couldn’t get our serves in.”

Hilton Head Christian (36-7-1), which won 10 straight sets in five matches in the 2A tournament at Myrtle Beach last weekend, fell behind 9-1 in the first set and eventually dropped it to the Warriors 25-19.

“We’re comeback kids,” Sydney DeSimone said. “When we’re down, we come back. So even when we were down like 9-1, we knew we could come back. And we did, we gave everything we had.”

The Eagles took an early advantage in the second set. The lead changed five times over the course of long volleys.

Hilton Head Christian rallied from a 14-10 deficit to take a 16-15 lead as Ady O’Grady served. The Eagles held a slight edge up until Spartanburg Christian tied the score at 22.

The Eagles tied it again at 23 but Spartanburg Christian (32-6) closed out the set with a 25-23 win. With Grace Picou serving for the Warriors, teammate Emmie Lancaster came up with a spike.

“Emmie hasn’t been healthy all year long and you could see she’s about 75 percent,” Spartanburg Christian head coach Andrew Garland said. “But she’s dominant. She’s scary good.”

“If we would have pulled that second set out, we would’ve tied it up and that’s when momentum switches,” Steve DeSimone said. “That’s the way volleyball is. Once you get a momentum turn, it’ll get the other team thinking.”

In the third set, Hilton Head Christian took a 3-2 lead, but Spartanburg Christian came alive on four Brantlie Price service points. The Warriors stayed three to four points ahead until clinching set and match.

“We missed a ton of serves, but they did too, and that’s a little bit of nerves,” Garland said. “But it’s experience for us. That’s really what it was. They (the Eagles) are a great team, a mirror image of us, but we’ve been here before and that made a difference.”

Hilton Head Christian loses six seniors from this year’s team, including Sidney DiSimone, who leads the state in kills and hitting percentage.

“She’s going to be a big loss but we’ve got some great players coming back,” Steve DeSimone said. “We’ve got Lauryn Qualls, a junior, our outside hitter. We’ve got Ady O’Grady, a freshman, who’s phenomenal. We’ve got some really great players so I’m excited about next year.”