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Columbia celebrates after scoring the final point to sweep Bradford on Thursday night. (JORDAN KROEGER/Lake City Reporter)
Trudy Andrews has been asking her team to finish sets stronger.
Columbia’s inability to finish sets led to a 2-5 start to the season. But fast forward two matches later, and the Tigers have finally answered that call with back-to-back sweeps.
Two nights after toppling Newberry in three sets, Columbia repeated that performance with a 25-20, 25-14, 25-16 win over Bradford at home on Thursday. The Tigers (4-5) closed out the Tornadoes (1-3) with runs of 10-5, 18-7 and 10-5 in their three sets, continuing their strong play from two nights earlier
“We’d come out real strong and then we’d slack off a little bit,” Andrews said of her team’s 2-5 start to the season. “Now our biggest thing is to keep finishing and keep pushing and not get complacent.”
Columbia (4-5) never did on Thursday thanks to a balanced offensive attack. Sinei Wood was impressive as usual on the outside with a team-high 12 kills to go with 17 digs and a pair of aces, while Autumn Jones and Cassidy O’Neal each had six kills.
Avery Sandlin added five kills and Kayla Goodloe finished with four.
“We’re starting to hit our spots better,” Andrews said. “We had some great swings in the middle and now we’re swinging real well on the right and the outside. So that just makes us better as a team because the defense doesn’t know where we’re coming from. We’ve just got to keep working on our plays and keep mixing some things up.”
The Tigers also kept Bradford (1-3) off balance with their serves, racking up 19 aces after some missed opportunities in the opening frame. Jones led CHS with five aces, while Mylie Fernandez served up four and Maritza Patterson had three.
Along with Wood, Haidyn Markham and Sandlin each had two aces.
“I liked the way we cleaned up our serves,” Andrews said. “We started the first set with some missed serves that we don’t need to do anymore. So, we cleaned that up.”
When Bradford managed to return serves, Fernandez was setting up Columbia’s hitters with a team-high 25 assists. Andrews says some of the adjustments she made following the Tigers’ 2-5 start to the season was just letting Fernandez set all the way around.
“I like the way Miley is getting a lot better in the setting role,” Andrews said. “She’s very comfortable.”
Andrews says she also changed up her defensive rotations while moving Sandlin back to the outside. Not only did it pay off with Thursday’s offensive numbers but it did defensively as well as no Tornado had more than Ar’Nayshia Smith’s five kills thanks to 12 digs from Markham, nine from Patterson, and seven apiece from Fernandez and Sandlin.
With new rotations providing momentum, the Tigers hope to continue building on it when they host Lafayette on Tuesday at 6 p.m.
“I just want them to keep playing as a team,” Andrews said. “We’ve found good rotations, everybody is getting more comfortable in their spots and in their roles. Now we’ve just got to keep building from where we are and keep getting better.”