GREYHOUND VOLLEYBALL
The Volley Hounds season may have ended last Thursday in heartbreaking fashion in a pair of close losses in the region tournament, but the pair of setbacks came at the end of what was a recordbreaking season for the sport that capped off its third year at JCHS.
With 14 wins, including the first two region match victories in program history as well as wins over other programs that Jones County had never beaten before, new ground was absolutely broken.
Four individuals key to the growth as a program, this year’s graduating seniors were recognized last Tuesday against Peach County on senior night, and each played a part in their own way in a pair of 25-19 set victories to win the match 2-0. A kill to end the second set came by way of one of those seniors as Madison Maxwell slammed the ball over the net to clinch to win, giving her and fellow seniors Jade Hipps, Paige Pieterick and Tori Land a victory in their final match in the JCHS Gymnasium.
“It was a great atmosphere to play in with everything just going back and forth with all the lead changes,” Lady Greyhounds head coach Lonnie Wheeler said.
The match itself had a palpable atmosphere, with a handful of Jones County student-athletes on hand finding ways to show raucous enthusiasm for the seniors and during the match.
“With all the schedule changes with teams in other regions, this actually turned out good,” Wheeler said. “It was really a homecoming-like atmosphere, you can’t ask for a better situation than that.”
