Ben Lippen’s Shamiya Jefferson goes for the kill against Heathwood Hall’s Bonnie Pope. Photo by Mike Maddock
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The Ben Lippen Falcons swept the Heathwood Hall Highlanders 3-0 (25-19, 25-9, and 25-18) Tuesday, September 12.
“I think a lot of our offensive success had a lot to do with Georgia Kate (Price), our center,” Ben Lippen head coach Sue Dillon said. “Julia (Hurd) was injured. She’s our other center. Georgia Kate led the offense really well. She was able to get the ball to the middle quite a bit because we had good passes. We were able to use our middle a lot. That really helped our offense. It was really effective. We were able to play our whole team. We have two starters who are injured. The ones who weren’t injured did a good job.”
Ben Lippen jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the first set. Shamiya Jefferson, Sarah Lou Dyson, and Alivia Martin all scored. Heathwood Hall got a point from Leah McMahon and benefitted from a couple of Falcon errors to trim the deficit to 8-3. A few Highlander errors and scoring from Regan Ellison pushed the Ben Lippen lead to 14-5. Heathwood Hall rallied with points from Alexandra Ninh, Emma Edwards, and Londyn James to get within 21-15. The Falcons got scoring from Martin and Lou Dyson to close out the first set 25-19.
Heathwood Hall’s Londyn James tries to get the ball past Ben Lippen’s Sarah Lou Dyson. Photo by Mike Maddock
Heathwood Hall that got the early jump in the second set as points from Ninh and some Ben Lippen errors helped the Highlanders to a 3-0 lead. Then the Falcons responded with a 20-4 run. Jefferson led the way for Ben Lippen, with Rylee and Regan Ellison also getting in on the scoring. James and Bonnie Pope tried to slow down the run by getting a couple of points for Heathwood Hall. However, it wasn’t enough as Martin scored to help Ben Lippen close out the second set 25-9.
In the third set, Heathwood Hall once again took an early lead, 8-2. Ninh’s scoring and a few Falcon errors helped out. However, Ben Lippen again rallied with a 14-4 run to take a 16-12 lead. Georgia Kate Price, Rylee Ellison, and Hannah Lyle all scored. Eve Smither scored the tiebreaking point that gave the Falcons the lead for good. Ninh and Louis Christian tried to keep Heathwood Hall in it, cutting the deficit to 16-14. Jefferson scored to boost Ben Lippen’s lead to 22-16, before Addi Collins scored for Heathwood Hall to get the Highlanders within five. Rylee Ellison finished the set and match off, helping Ben Lippen score three of the final four points to win 25-18.
“The first set was closer than I thought it would be because we made too many errors, too many service errors,” Dillon said. “The second set was the best set. We really went after it. We were aggressive. The third set I put some of my bench players in and they struggled a little bit with service, but we cleaned it up at the end. I lost one of my starters in the third set––had to go out with a rib injury. So we were down three starters. So we really rallied. I’m really proud of my bench players.”
The win improves Ben Lippen to 7-4-1 overall and 2-1 in SCISA Region 1-4A.
“This one is so important because we are going after Cardinal Newman,” Dillon said. “They are the ones who always win the region. We have to make sure we take care of business with the other teams. We’ve improved every year. Our program is growing. We’re still going after that Cardinal Newman win. We have them next Thursday. Every one of these wins is super important.”
Heathwood Hall falls to 1-3 overall and 0-1 in the region.
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