Harmony Jackson, Chole Carr lead Lafayette past Ridgeland in second round of 5A Playoffs
RIDGELAND — Lafayette couldn’t have asked for a better start in the first two rounds of the 5A North Playoffs.
After dispatching Greenville in the first round, the Lady Commodores rode that momentum — and the play of Harmony Jackson and Chloe Carr — to sweep Ridgeland in three sets 25-7, 25-19 and 25-11 in the Second Round of the MHSAA Class 5A playoffs on Tuesday night.
Lafayette (22-15) will travel to New Hope (19-8) on Thursday in the Third Round of the Class 5A playoffs.
“We came out really strong and didn’t make a lot of errors,” said Lafayette coach Taylor Elliott. “Second set, we gave them momentum and we overcame that, and third set we played great as well.”
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In the first set, the Lady Commodores raced out to a 15-4 lead and never looked back taking the first set 25-7.
In the second set, Lafayette held a commanding 24-12 lead, but Ridgeland scored seven-straight points to cut the lead down to 24-19. But the Lady Commodores were able to to get the final point to take the second set 25-19 and take a 2-0 lead in the match.
In the third and final set, it was back and forth at the beginning, but with the set tied 10-10, Lafayette went on a 9-0 run to take a 19-10 lead. They finished out the set 25-11 to take the match.
“I called timeout to give the girls a break and told them that you’re going to face adversity and let’s finish this and get the last point," Elliott said. "Giving them momentum wasn’t easy We’re very excited to be playing on Thursday and we’re not expecting to be an easy game and we’re on the road again. Our mind set this week was to prepare for Thursday.”
Jackson had 12 kills and five digs for Lafayette, while Carr had 16 digs for the Lady Commodores.
“We knew coming in we had to come in here and dominate and not look past them," Carr said. "We didn’t know much about them and we played our hardest. We came out strong in the first, in the second and third set we were a bit off, but we came back and knew it was ours, and we took it.”
Ridgeland finished the season 20-7.
“The girls had a bunch of nerves to start, and once they settled down they started to put things together,” said Ridgeland coach Jessica Packer. “Proud of them for fighting, but wish we could’ve strung things together that we went over in practice,. But they were consistent and we didn’t have anything working tonight.”
