KENNESAW — Kaitlyn Moran surpassed 2,000 career assists Saturday in helping Mount Paran Christian win its second straight Cobb County volleyball championship with a 25-14, 25-20 victory over Region 6AA rival North Cobb Christian at North Cobb High School.
After reaching her milestone during pool play earlier in the day, Moran came away with 21 assists in the match. Sarah Schwartz led the way with 11 kills and 11/2 blocks. Claire Jordan finished with eight kills, a block assist and an ace and Sam Buff added three block assists.
A straight set victory was what the Lady Eagles (40-6) needed after allowing the second set to get away in their semifinal match against Hillgrove before winning in the third. But at the same time, they don’t want to overlook North Cobb Christian should they play in next week’s 6AA tournament.
“It’s the first one we done it back-to-back, so that’s a new one,” Mount Paran coach Selina Chancy said. “We toughed out Hillgrove and pulled that one out. We kind of didn’t want to play North Cobb Christian in the championship because we’re hoping now that we don’t get too confident since we have to play them again most likely for the region championship.”
After allowing Hillgrove to rally to send its previous match to the third set, jumping in front and securing that second set was key for Mount Paran. It opened the set with five straight kills with three of them coming from Claire Jordan. North Cobb Christian (27-11) rallied and got within one at 8-7, but Mount Paran managed to stay in front.
It appeared to be in control of the set when a North Cobb Christian hitting error increased the lead to 23-16, but North Cobb Christian wasn’t finished as it rattled off three straight points, the third coming on an ace by Ryleigh Pruitt to cut the Mount Paran lead to 23-19, forcing Chancy to call timeout.
“We’re tired because it has been a long day,” Chancy said. “We reminded them to get their feet to the ball, keeping it simple and not trying to do too much.”
Mount Paran got back on serve with five match points to play with following a Schwartz kill. After North Cobb Christian saved the first one, Jordan delivered a kill to win the championship.
Sienna Parker and Evie Ziffer led North Cobb Christian with five kills apiece. Ava Garner added four kills and 11/2 blocks. Ava Morlan dished out 18 assists.
“Mount Paran is a good team that focuses on keeping the ball in play and working together,” North Cobb Christian coach Anna Matthews said. “One thing that we got to get a little better at is cutting out our errors and having each other’s backs, and we’re working on that.”
North Cobb Christian, which made its first trip to the Cobb County finals, came back from a set down to beat North Cobb 3-2 (22-25, 26-24, 15-13) in the other semifinal.
(1) comment
Great recap! MPC is a really fun team to watch!
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