Lady Canes Samantha Conley (8) and Katie O’Connor (16) meet the attack at the net while Emily Williams (2) positions herself for a dig in Cartersville’s match against Drew last Saturday. Cartersville visits Woodward Academy on Saturday in an Elite 8 game.
SKIP BUTLER/The Daily Tribune News
Well the tallest of orders is waiting for the Cartersville Lady Purple Hurricanes when they compete in the Elite 8 on Saturday at 11 a.m. against Woodward Academy, the state tournament's No. 1-seeded volleyball team and Cartersville host this weekend for the match.
Coach Scott Busby said the participants were reseeded after making the Elite 8 and the Lady Canes drew the No. 8 seed, while Woodward received the top seed.
He said Woodward Academy is every bit as good as its No. 1 seeding suggests.
"It'll be fun," he said. "Woodward is a very fine-tuned group of girls who play together year-round. They average in height between 5 feet 9 inches to 6 feet and are the No. 1 team in the state."
Busby said the War Eagles (51-10, 11-0 in Area 1-AAA) are a well-balanced team. "They can attack from all positions.
"We will have to concentrate on ball placement in an attempt to slow the game down."
He said the Lady Canes must be prepared.
"In order to be successful, we're going to have to have a huge defensive effort, really dig in in the back row."
He said Woodward is a very seasoned team, having played a lot of Georgia's best squads in its region and surrounding area, and it also honed its skills against some of the best teams available in out-of-state tournaments as well.
The Lady Canes this year have been built from the ground up, literally, as they started with a 0-7 record and now sport an impressive 20-14 record from a team that has a lot of all -around talent rather than a few star players.
The Lady Canes were 4-1 in Region 6-AAA.
The team has just four seniors -- Samantha Conley, Megan Patton, Emily Williams and Lindsey Jones -- but Busby said he never knows who will be stepping up in any particular match.
"The girls have become a pretty cohesive group," Busby said. "We play as a team. We don't depend on any one player to produce stats. It depends on who's playing well that day and most of the time it's pretty well balanced between our middles and our outside players."
The winner of Saturday's match advances to the next round, playing on Tuesday against the winner of the Oconee County-Ringgold match.
Should Cartersville advance, it could theoretically meet at least one team with whom it is familiar.
Allatoona, also in the Elite 8, and Cartersville have collided three times during the year with Cartersville earning a 1-2 record.