Division II volleyball state championship goes to The Baylor School's Red Raiders

The Baylor School coach was keeping a positive focus and stiff upper lip as he tried to convince his squad that it would be able to do something that it had not done in neither a pre-season scrimmage or nor a pool play match on Friday _ beat a tough and talented Father Ryan team.

On the other hand, he was rehearsing his relatively hollow post-game reminder that if it had given its maximum effort and fallen short, there was nothing more that it could have done. It was the same speech he'd had to make a year ago when Baylor finished as runner-up to University School of Nashville in the Class A-AA state tourney.

Ryan had waxed Baylor 15-3 in the opening game of the championship match and regained the momentum by turning a 6-1 deficit into a 9-6 lead as it seemingly owned the match.

Baylor team celebrates Division II Volleyball state championship

"I wanted us not to feel the pressure. I felt coming into the tournament that Ryan was the heavy favorite and that we'd have to play really well to win over them."

Emmanuele must have been pretty convincing. His team rallied from the one-game deficit and overcame Ryan's 9-6 lead to take a 15-10 decision in Game 2 of the championship.

Then, after trailing 10-7 midway of the deciding Game 3, one which was played with rally scoring, the Lady Red Raiders outscored Ryan 7-1 for a 14-11 lead. And even though Ryan came back to even the score at 14-all, Baylor closed out the match by winning the final two points for a 16-14 victory that gave the school its first state volleyball championship.

The win improved Baylor's record to 44-8 and gave the school its second Division II girls state championship in as many weeks. Last week Baylor's won the Division II girls golf title.

Baylor made it into the championship with a 15-8, 15-4 win semifinal win over Girls Preparatory School, the same team it defeated to win the East Region title just a week ago.

"Coach told us we'd have to play hard, and we knew we couldn't have many mistakes. We finally quit making them,'' said senior outside hitter Brooke West, who was joined on the all-tournament team by teammate Abby Studer, 6-foot-4 junior middle hitter, who had 19 kills in the tournament's final two matches.

The championship match was the lone loss in the two-day tournament, played at Winfield Dunn Center on the Austin Peay State University campus. The Lady Irish had beaten Briarcrest Christian, Harding Academy and The Baylor School in pool play on Friday before disposing of St. Benedict of Auburndale in its semifinal match.

Selected as the Most Valuable Player in the tourney was Ryan senior setter Angela Rholing, who was also joined on the all-tourney team by senior Christi Binkley, a 6-foot-1 senior hitter for Ryan, sophomore Stephanie Bird of St. Benedict Auburndale and senior Sallie Gray Strang of Girls Preparatory School.