Shady Spring retains Shirley Brown Invitational title
Sep. 2—Brantlea Wood hopes her young team learned something Saturday afternoon.
Shady Spring picked up its second win of the week against George Washington, and in the process defended its Shirley Brown Invitational championship at Woodrow Wilson High School.
The Tigers defeated the Patriots 2-0 in the championship match. Shady cruised in the first set 25-16, but things went back and forth in the decisive second set.
GW led by four three times early, including 8-4. That's when Shady got back in it, a Patriots serve going out of bounds and senior Camille Testerman serving out five straight points for a 10-8 lead.
Junior Rachel Mann had a pair of kills in the run.
The Patriots then won five of the next eight points to reclaim the lead at 14-13. From there the game was tied four times, the last 17-17.
Shady appeared to take control at that moment, getting a point on a sideout and Kenidi Creager nearly serving it out, to 24-17. But GW ended the run and was able to pull to within a point.
The Tigers called timeout, and Mann threw down a shot that the Patriots were able to get a hand on. But the ball fell to the court and the Tigers escaped with a 25-23 win to clinch the championship.
"That's going to be our thing — making sure that we don't let teams creep back in," said Wood, the Tigers' first-year coach. "It happened a couple times today. But making sure they understand that one mistake, don't let it turn into two or three. Because we're young. We are a young team."
Shady was seeded second in the bracket portion after winning five of six games in pool play, then advanced to the title match with a win over Capital in the quarterfinals and host Woodrow Wilson the semifinals.
"I thought they played great," Wood said. "They played together. They looked good. It took everybody on the floor and everybody on the bench, talking and moving. That's what this team is. It's going to be everybody working together and getting excited for each other."
The Tigers split their opening game against the Flying Eagles in pool play, then swept Capital and Cabell Midland.
They opened their season last weekend at home with a win over Huntington and a loss to GW. They avenged that loss with a win on the Patriots' home court Thursday night, followed by a straight sets win over Parkersburg.
"We started last Saturday and kind of had a slow start, then went to GW on Thursday and really came alive," Wood said. "I still don't think that we played (Saturday) the way that we played on Thursday, but the way they pushed through and stayed consistent the whole day, the teamwork was just awesome."
Shady will play in the Philip Barbour tournament next weekend. Woodrow will travel to Greenbrier East on Thursday to battle the host Spartans and Oak Hill.
