Big and best

By EASportsToday.com
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Updated: September 9, 2019

Donoho stuns Oxford in what coach Jamie Clendenin called his ‘best’ win with the Lady Falcons

Monday’s matches
Donoho 2, Oxford 1 (25-19, 19-25, 15-13)
Donoho 2, Spring Garden 1 (25-21, 13-25, 15-9)
Oxford 2, Spring Garden 0 (25-12, 25-20)
White Plains at Cherokee County

By East Alabama Sports Today

Donoho’s three-set volleyball victory over Oxford Monday night was significant on so many fronts.

It was the small school taking down the county giant. It was Donoho coach Jamie Clendenin winning over the team that gave him his first coaching job and then turned him aside. It was major county tournament seeding cred.

The 1A Lady Falcons trimmed 6A Oxford 25-19, 19-25, 15-13, coming from 13-10 down in the tiebreaker to win the match. They followed it up with a three-set win over Spring Garden (25-21, 13-25, 15-9).

“I told the girls tonight it was (his) best win at Donoho,” Clendenin said. “We go in sort of David versus Goliath, our short girls going up against their 6-foot girls across the net. They’re like, ‘Coach, what do we do?’ You just play. It was fun. It really was.”

Maggie Wakefield had six kills and two blocks in the Oxford match, while Lily Grace Draper, Mya Keel and Mercy Mangum had three kills apiece. Maggie Miller had nine assists and Keel a team-high seven digs.

In the Spring Garden win, Wakefield had seven kills, Mangum had five and Draper four. Miller had 14 assists and five aces. Sarah Waggoner had five digs and Mya Keel had four.

The Lady Falcons (16-7) started quickly against Oxford, then had a little letdown in the second. They were on the verge of losing the third set when Clendenin called time to realign the focus. Clendenin said it was “consistency across the board” that carried them to the victory.

“It was a now or never kind of thing,” he said of his message. “You sit there as a coach and say we’ve been here before. We’ve won some of these, we’ve bombed some of these. I set back and let them do their thing. I think they’re starting to believe that it doesn’t matter what the score is we’re going to keep fighting to the end.”

Oxford (8-6) beat Spring Garden in straight sets, 25-12, 25-20.

Cover photo by Stephen Miller