Bluffton falls to Bishop England for 3A Lower State volleyball crown
“Everything. Everything.”
Bluffton High School volleyball coach Tina Franklin accurately summed up what the greatest strength of Bishop England’s squad was Monday night.
Franklin’s Bobcats experienced that strength first hand in the Class 3A Lower State championship match, as the Battling Bishops came into the Bobcats’ gym and cruised on to the state finals with a quick victory, 25-12, 25-14, 25-10.
“Playing a team that’s won a state championship for 17 years in a row — and they looked it,” Franklin said.
Those 17 state titles came at the Class 2A level. The Bishops will go for their first 3A crown this weekend, taking on Upper State champion Camden Saturday at Dutch Fork High School in Columbia.
“Their offense is extremely strong — I mean, they’re putting the ball away left and right,” Franklin noted. “It was a fast game.”
Senior Emma Lawrence was the star of the match for the Bishops, hitting from everywhere on the floor. She notched seven kills alone in the second set.
The Bishops excelled at handling serves and digging up anything that came their way. Their back-line players consistently controlled the first touch, setting up their outside hitters for success.
Bluffton got off to strong starts in the first two sets, but Bishop England pulled away each time after the Bobcats tied it up at 6-6.
Clara Park’s serving and a couple of kills from Lawrence helped the Bishops open up a 15-8 lead in the first set, and then Reagan McKinley served out the final six points — aided by a few Bluffton errors — to close out Game 1, 25-12.
McKinley reeled off four straight service points in Game 2 to help the Bishops pull out to an 11-6 lead. The visitors continued to pull away behind the hitting of Lawrence, eventually taking a 25-14 win.
Mistakes and mis-hits plagued the Bobcats in the final set, and they weren’t able to offer up much resistance. Park had a hot serving hand again, and the Bishops received some key contributions off the bench from Anna Warren.
In the end, Franklin was proud of her players for battling with a superior squad.
“They came back quite a bit, mentally,” the coach said. “Several of them would get frustrated and kind of go inward, and would dig out of it a bit. It kind of went like that through the whole night.”
This was the teams’ second meeting this season, and both matches looked about the same. Bishop England defeated Bluffton, 2-0, when they met in August at the Nation Ford Invitational, winning 25-21, 25-8.
“When we played them earlier in the year, we had our No. 1 outside hitter and one of our captains, and she got injured the first tournament of the season,” Franklin said, referencing senior Shadaisha Altacho, who tore knee ligaments and missed the rest of the season.
“We’ve been up and down all season,” Franklin added. “Had a good run — top four in the state. I’m proud of that. They were a better team.”
This was the Bobcats’ first trip to the Lower State final since 2009. Bluffton defeated Swansea, Lake Marion and Hanahan to reach the state semifinals, doing so without dropping a set along the way.
This story was originally published November 7, 2016 at 8:20 PM with the headline "Bluffton falls to Bishop England for 3A Lower State volleyball crown."