Jefferson makes program history with first state title win
The Jefferson Dragons completed the mission on Saturday when they defeated the Calhoun Yellow Jackets 3-0 to claim the Georgia High School Association Class 3A state title for their first state championship in program history.
"There's so many of them! It's magical to say the least," Jefferson head coach, Brittani Lawrence, said of her emotions after the Dragons clinched the win on Saturday, giving praise to her players for their performance. "We are just ecstatic. I don't know what else to say, but we did it," Lawrence said of the historic win, which Jefferson was in control majority of the match, however not without a battle from the Yellow Jackets
Putting on a overall dominant performance in set one, going up by as many as 16 points in route to a 25-14 win, the Dragons would find themselves in a much tighter situation which required them to come from behind late in set two, taking a 23-22 lead and eventually winning the set 25-22 after being down 21-19.
However, in set three, the Dragons would resemble the control of set one as they would outscore the Yellow Jackets 11-4 to start the set and eventually win the third frame by a final 25-13, winning the match 3-0. "Big reset. One of our keys to success walking into this match was next fall mentality was going to be a main character," Lawrence said of Jefferson's adjustments between set two and three.
"When I called a timeout in the second set, that's what I reminded those girls of. I reminded them that they are equipped to do hard things, that we just need to trust our training and that we need to focus on our next ball. We knew that Calhoun was going to make some great points and that's exactly what they did, but we also knew that we were going to make more is what happened," Lawrence said.
Jefferson finishes the 2024 season at 36-5 overall and 7-1 in region play and entered the state tournament as the No. 2 seed out of Region 8.
Comments