BY WIL CREWS
SPORTSCREWS@OPELIKAOBSERVER.COM
BEAUREGARD —
The varsity Beauregard High School volleyball team hosted and won its postseason area tournament last week.
“Our motto this year has been ‘All in,’” said head coach Kathy McDonald. “We are all in this together, we are all in it for the same thing, so we are building off of that.”
The Hornets clinched the regular season 5A Area 5 title earlier this season, giving the team the right to host the postseason tournament. According to Maxpreps.com, the Hornets finished 15-5 in the regular season. After watching the first games of the area tournament play out with a bye in the first round, Beauregard had already done enough to clinch a berth into regionals.
“The top two [teams] go to regionals,” McDonald said. “So, at that point we just had to play for seeding.”
Following the defeat of Valley at the hands of the Eufaula Tigers, the Hornets then faced the Tigers in the championship match. Beauregard defeated Eufaula 3-0 (25-19, 25-18, 25-18) to secure the area title.
“[I was most impressed by] the girls just working together as a team,” McDonald said. “With the support from the players that did not go into the game and the support from the fans … we were battling some sickness … I felt like I could put anybody in and they would be ready.”
The Hornets competed in the start of regionals, Oct. 19, in Montgomery with a game against the Citronelle Wildcats.
To see continued success, McDonald said she expects her players to continue to trust one another as they have all season.
“Cleaning up our game and not making errors and continuing to work together … trusting in each other and knowing that if they make a mistake it’s not the end of the world, will help us moving forward,” she said.
Beauregard faces a prospective second-round matchup against either Providence Christian (Dothan) or Marbury if it advances past the first round. The semi-final and championship rounds take place Thursday, Oct. 20. Beauregard would need to beat four schools to be crowned region champions. To qualify to advance to state, the Hornets need to win just its first two matchups. One loss, however, ends the Hornets’ 2022 campaign. But Beauregard is not going down without a fight.
“That’s one of the biggest things about our team — if they get down they don’t show a lot of negative emotion, they just really support each other,” McDonald said. “They don’t have a lot of negative things to say to each other … they don’t worry about who makes a mistake … they just play; they just continue to push forward.”