Tyler Harris, Staff Writer
Southern Ohio Sports Authority is presented by OhioHealth.
PORTSMOUTH — Through 10 games in Ohio Valley Conference action, Gallia Academy is a perfect 10-0.
CREDIT: Tyler Harris/SOSA
The Blue Devils showed no signs of a slowdown on Thursday in a trip to Portsmouth.
While Gallia seemed to do no wrong, the Trojans couldn’t seem to get anything right — a credit to the Devils’ game plan in general. With little resistance, Gallia (16-2, 10-0 OVC) handed Portsmouth a 25-13, 25-11, 25-13 loss.
“We just talk about running the plays that we know how to run, regardless of the tempo,” Gallia coach Sally Barnette said of her team’s mindset. “We like to play fast and so we still try to do our things quickly. And tonight, our message was keep your focus and don’t let up.”
It was very much a night in which Gallia was able to take advantage of Portsmouth’s mistakes while keeping focus on playing a clean, mistake-free match. They answered that bell at every chance.
While it may not have been a night in which the stat sheet was jam-packed, the Devils showed their maturity and simply took care of business.
All three sets started the same way — with Gallia quickly taking a commanding lead to put the game away early. The first started out with an 11-7 lead for Gallia as Portsmouth (7-8, 4-6 OVC) was able to hang around.
But that quickly shifted after a 7-1 Devil run made it 19-8, which forced a Portsmouth timeout. The other two sets went very similarly as Gallia held leads of 12-3 and 14-2 in the second and third, respectively, before putting the Trojans away.
The Devils used an array of options to attack the Trojans’ defense, which allowed them to keep Portsmouth off-balance all night long.
“We are so lucky to have great players,” Barnette said, “Jenna [Harrison], our libero, and Regan [Wilcoxon] can move the ball in so many places that it gives our hitters a lot of options. We like to use the ‘hot hand’ quite a bit. But like tonight, it just depends on how the other team is set up and where their libero is.”
It seemed like it didn’t matter how the other team set up. Gallia was going to make things happen regardless.
That could be attributed to the excellent senior leadership in the locker room. With six seniors that play significantly in the team’s rotations, the Devils have a ton of maturity and leadership to feed off of.
Defensively, that started with Harrison and offensively, Wilcoxon was fantastic at setting up her hitters up — particularly fellow senior Chanee Cremeens, who led all hitters with 11 kills.
“We really want to win the OVC again this year and we’re going to keep our focus beyond that,” Barnette said. “We have our own prize as well. We really want to make it past the sectional tournament and go farther, just playing our game.”
Harrison led Gallia defensively with eight digs alongside three assists while Callie Wilson had six digs to go along with seven kills. Wilcoxon was terrific with 25 assists, Cremeens had a match-high 11 kills and Emma Hammons and Jalyn Short chipped in with six kills a piece. Hammons led the net play with six blocks.
Portsmouth was led by Sydney Johnson with 15 digs, while Katie Ankrom had eight for herself. Maysa Calvin had an all-around game, notching five digs, 10 assists and three kills while Kennedy Bowling and Ayonna Carr each chipped in six kills as well.
The Devils are back in action on Tuesday in OVC play, hosting Coal Grove, while Portsmouth hosts Northwest on Monday.
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