Milton claims No. 1 seed for region tournament with Lanier win

The Milton Eagles volleyball team is nearing the end of their first regular season under head coach, Missy Hall, and are already ready beginning to reap the benefits the culture change the longtime volleyball coach has brought to the program as they claimed the outright regular season number one seed ahead of the Georgia High School Association Class 5A Region 7 tournament.

“I could not be more proud of them. They have worked from the minute we stepped on the court in late July, they have bought in and have been working so hard on fundamentals. Being fundamentally sound, putting together complete games and they’ve just grown all through the season with each and every game,” Hall said after Tuesday’s win, expressing how “proud” of her players she is.

And for the Eagles, claiming the No. 1 seed, which has not happened for the program in nearly two decades, was accomplished after their 3-0 win over the Lanier Longhorns on Tuesday and while they did not drop any sets on the night, the Eagles found themselves having to withstand every shot the Longhorns threw their way with the match beginning with Milton convincingly winning set one 25-9, however found themselves having to hold off the Longhorns  for a 25-17 set two and 25-22 set three wins.

“We had a tone of people contribute tonight which was great,” Hall said as she shared how she shared how being able to see her right side and middle players be big contributors to help battle the Longhorns, “which was really good,” Hall added. As she continued and credited Lanier for how well they played defense in sets two and three, she praised her players for how they adjusted and “played more rally points” to win the sets.

Now with the No. 1 seed locked up, the Eagles will have four more matches, including a final region match with Chattahoochee, Hall believes Milton’s postseason can be successful, however it will be important for them to “continue to grow and clean up” in areas like “server ceive so we have more options with our offense, speeding up our offense and having more players contribute,” Hall said.