Pope Goes "Harder" Wins Three Straight Sets To Defeat Johns Creek And Advance To Region Title Game
As Georgia High School Association volleyball region tournaments continued, the Pope Greyhounds, who hosted the 6A Region 7 tournament, took on the Johns Creek Gladiators on Wednesday in a best of five match for a chance to advance to the region championship match. During the regular season, the Greyhounds, who went unbeaten in region play, swept the season series with the Gladiators, so to no surprise, Johns Creek came out aggressive and would take set one 25-22.
The Gladiator’s aggressive play continued into set two as they would open up outscoring Pope 9-3 to get the set started, but would eventually stall as the Greyhounds would go on a 6-0 run to tie the set at nine all. From there, as Pope appeared to be finding their groove, they would outscore Johns Creek 16-3 to take set two 25-12. In sets three and four, Pope continued to stay in rhythm with good passes and touches to help them take early leads in each set, leads they would never relinquish as they would take set three 25-14 and set four 25-15.
“I think we just needed to settle in and play with confidence and relax,” Pope head community coach Erica Miller said of the Greyhounds bouncing back to take three straight sets after dropping set one. “We just kind of had to settle back and say, ‘we’re playing a really good team, we need to just switch the lights on and go harder which is what we did,” Miller said of Pope’s play in sets two through four. Now with the region championship on the line, Miller says “consistency” will be key in the play of the Greyhounds in order to secure the title.
“I know the girls would tell you they had some high moments, but some low moments so tomorrow night, we just want to play consistently with things we do in training every single day,” Miller said of the Greyhounds and their preparation for the region championship match when they take on the Alpharetta Raiders.
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