BY DANIEL SCHMIDT
THE OBSERVER
AUBURN — Ruth Johnson won 13 points, dished out 14 assists and had two aces and Bentley Lassiter won 15 points and tallied nine digs and seven aces as Auburn High School (4-10, 2-0) cruised to a straight-sets home win over Smiths Station High School (3-8, 0-2) on Monday.
The Lady Tigers defeated the Lady Panthers 25-7, 25-4 and 25-7 to win their second Class 6A Area 4 win of the season. The win also set up a de facto area championship game against crosstown rivals Opelika High School (7-4, 1-0) the very next day.
Auburn head coach Ashley Parnell said the difference boiled down to the quality of the Lady Tigers’ serves and their willingness to attack balls at the net. She added the win would give her team a confidence boost as it moves into the final stretch of the regular season.
“Credit to Smiths Station, they played really hard and hustled after every ball,” Parnell said. “But that’s something that we really focused on in timeouts, is staying focused even when you get a big lead. And I think that that’s what separates the good teams from the great teams.”
Rachel Deshazo, who had four kills and an ace for Auburn, credited the win to her team’s communication and zone discipline and said the Lady Tigers had spent an outsized amount of time at practice working on serves.
“I’m so excited for our second area dub,” Deshazo said. “We’ve been struggling with [serving], and I think it really paid off. I think our serves were really good. I think we played really well on the net, and we stayed ready.”
Smiths Station’s stats were unavailable before Tuesday’s press deadline.
Auburn hosted Opelika on Tuesday. The Observer will have coverage of that game in the Sept. 24 edition.
