St. Joseph’s Academy led 1-0 against Sulphur before entering a tight-knit second set.
The two sides traded leads, and the Golden Tornados took a 17-15 lead after seven errors over a 9-6 Sulphur run. The Redstickers tested different lineups over the stretch, but quickly bounced back.
Jules Lawrence and Lexi Sumich settled into a groove on the outside, combining for five kills to help St. Joseph’s close out the second set on a 10-0 run to take a 2-0 lead.
No. 14 St. Joseph’s (20-18) defeated No. 19 Sulphur 3-0 (25-16, 25-17, 25-17) in the Division I bidistrict round on Wednesday night at St. Joseph’s.
“I’m happy with the way that we executed and played,” Redstickers coach Donna Pixley said. “Some of the things that we’ve been working on in practice, we were able to do tonight.”
After dropping the first point of the match, St. Joseph’s quickly ripped off a 4-1 run and never trailed the rest of the way in the first set. Emmy Graves totaled two kills and one block in the first set.
The Tornados trimmed the deficit to four late, down 19-15, before the Redstickers closed out the opening set with four straight points, which included a kill by Jules Lawrence and a Mackenzie Chuilli ace.
Graves led the team in kills with nine, while Lawrence added eight. Lawrence also had three aces, and Chuilli had two. Camille Fremin finished with 19 assists.
The second set included seven ties before a collection of St. Joseph’s hits that landed out allowed Sulphur (22-16) to take a 17-15 lead. Sumich then started St. Joseph’s 10-0 run after she hammered consecutive kills. Lawrence added two kills over the run, and Sumich had one more late. An errant Sulphur hit out of bounds closed out the set.
“We’re trying to move some people around to see what our options might be for matchup purposes in the playoffs down the road,” Pixley said. “Just some people playing out of sync, and our tempo slowed down a good bit. Once we were able to speed that back up offensively, not from our first contact, but the setting to the attacking, we were able to clean it up and go.”
Graves smacked five kills, and Lawrence had three in the third set as St. Joseph’s trailed just once during the entire set after losing the first point.
In the closing moments, St. Joseph’s put all four of its seniors, Chuilli, Raile Green, Sydney Averett and Maddie Landers on the floor for the final point.
“They have shown such amazing leadership,” Pixley said. “To be able to have all four of them on the floor at the end of that match was important to me.”
St. Joseph’s will now face No. 3 Dominican (34-6) in the regional round. The match will be the fifth time the two sides have squared off this season.
“They don’t make a whole lot of mistakes,” Pixley said. “The good thing is we have a lot of film. Hopefully it’ll be a dogfight down there, and we make it to the dome.”
