When things are going well for the Bowling Green Lady Purples, head coach Keith Carver rarely gets up to address his team during timeouts and between quarters.
“If things are going right, I just don’t want to mess it up. I’m fortunate to have six assistant coaches on my bench. I didn’t want to add any extra pressure on them,” he said.
Carver didn’t stray too far from the end of the bench on Monday as the Lady Purples defeated Heritage Christian Academy 3-0 (25-10, 25-11, 25-10) in the first round of the KHSAA Girls Volleyball Tournament at HCA’s Eldridge Rogers Court.
“I thought we were focused and locked in. Our whole mantra is to just try and stay under control and trust our defense,” he said.
The Lady Purples had to overcome a raucous crowd that packed Warrior Gym and caused the match to be a sellout early Monday afternoon.
“Our kids did a really good job of not making a whole lot of errors and not paying attention much to the crowd,” Carver said after his squad won its 10th straight match and improved to 34-6.
Heritage Christian Academy, who won the school’s first KHSAA region title in any sport last week, knew it would have to contend with 6-foot-4 middle blocker Amirra Bailey, who has committed to play at the University of Louisville, and the strong setting of sophomore JoEllen Marshall.
Bailey’s powerful kills kept HCA on the move for most of the match while Marshall had three options on the front row or could just redirect passes over the net herself. Marshall finished with 30 assists and four kills while Bailey totaled a match-high 14 kills.
Alona Lupardus added seven kills, and Addie Kincheloe added four. Morgan Rockrohr chipped in with three kills and three aces for the Lady Purples, who last lost to a Kentucky school on September 21 against McCracken County.
It was one of the few times this year where HCA spent most of the match playing defense instead of getting into a consistent offensive flow.
“We knew the task coming in and we knew there were going to be balls that we were not going to get. So we focused on trying to control the things we could control, getting the balls up we knew we could get up, and making sure that our heads stayed in the match the whole time,” HCA coach Grace Stewart said.
Bowling Green got out to a 7-3 lead in the opening set before HCA got to within 7-5. However, the Lady Purples flexed their muscles a bit and used an 11-1 run to take an 18-6 lead. It was the same story in the second set as Bowling jumped out to an 11-3 lead. HCA would get as close as seven points just once in the set.
Up 6-3 in the third set, Bowling Green scored seven straight points for a 13-3 advantage. Even down by double digits for the rest of the set, Stewart was glad to see her team continuing to dive for balls and sticking with the game plan.
“That’s what they’ve been doing all year and that’s what has gotten them to this point. They don’t give up and they do what I ask them to do. They keep playing until someone tells them they have to get off the court,” she said.
In her final game as a Lady Warrior, Mya Goodwin, the lone HCA senior, had four kills and seven digs.
Bralee Fowler added three kills and Katie Cansler had two kills and three digs. Makenzie McCarty had five assists and four digs, and Hadlee Hayes added six digs.
Bowling Green won a first-round game at the state tournament for the third time in four seasons. Carver said that experience as well as other factors were an advantage before the first serve on Monday.
“I mean, 5A versus 1A, right? We’re gonna have more athletes but kudos to their fans. I mean, they came out and tried to equal it out as much as they could,” Carver said. “Heritage had a great season, a great run. I watched two games during their region tournament and they played hard, so they deserved to be here.”
Bowling Green (34-6) advances to Friday’s quarterfinal in Winchester when they play Mercy Academy (26-14). The Lady Purples are trying to buck state tournament history that has played against public schools since volleyball began in the state in 1979. No public school has ever won a state title and only two – Greenwood in 2011 and Paul Laurence Dunbar in 2022 – have advanced to the championship match.
For Heritage Christian Academy, its season ends with a record of 24-6 and two championship trophies in the lobby of the school on display as fans entered on Monday – their first district and region title hardware since becoming a full-time KHSAA member two years ago.
“I hope they gain a little bit of confidence from their success and also see there are definitely things we need to work on in the post-season if we want to consistently compete at a higher level and get to that next step. We’re always trying to push past the next step,” Stewart said.
