Fairfield wins in 3 sets over visiting Ripley 

LEESBURG — Tuesday evening saw the Fairfield Lady Lions host the Ripley Lady Blue Jays, where it was FHS leaving their home court with a 3-0 win as they won all three sets. 

Fairfield won by scores of 26-24, 25-9, and 25-23 in the Aug. 25 match at Grandle Gymnasium. 

Fairfield has started the season 3-0 overall. 

“It is definitely a good way to start the season. It's a confidence booster for the girls. We've got five games this week, so they're going to be exhausted. I know I am, so they definitely will be, but showing up every day, knowing what the task is, we got to end the night strong and they did that. They show up every day ready to play,” Fairfield head coach Kamryn Daulton said.

In set one the Lady Lions led early by a 3-1 score following serves by senior Kinsey Drury and a kill from fellow senior Remi Moon. Moon finished the match with 19 kills, six aces, and 28 digs. Duruy ended the match with two aces and 12 digs. 

Eventually the score was tied at 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19 and 21-21 as each team seemed to have an answer to stop any sort of sustained momentum by their opponent. 

Ripley took a 21-19 lead causing Fairfield to call a timeout. From there FHS scored the next three points for a 22-21 advantage, and this time it was Ripley calling a timeout. 

The Lady Blue Jays tied the score at 22, but the Lady Lions regained the lead after Ripley hit the ball out of play. The Lady Blue Jays tied the score at 23, then took a 24-23 lead. 

Fairfield wasn't finished, tying the score when RHS hit their own side of the net on a serve, and then scored two more points with an ace by junior Addison Cannon. Ripley hit the ball out of play for the two-point win for Fairfield at 26-24. Cannon finished with one kill, one assist, two aces and 12 digs. 

Set two was spectacular for Fairfield, though it didn't begin that way, as Ripley built a 7-0 advantage.

Fairfield fought back for a 9-5 deficit, but the fifth point was the start of something big for the Lady Lions.

That fifth point was the beginning of Fairfield scoring 21 consecutive points against the Lady Blue Jays for what turned into a 25-9 set two win.

“Scoring 21 points in a row is a lot of serving,” Daulton said. “Remi was up serving, and she had a lot of back-to-back, which we work a lot on serving in practice. That's definitely one of our strengths this year, especially for Remi, which she's good all around. She's a good all-around player, so it was a proud coach moment.”

The streak of scoring included 20 consecutive serves from Moon, as she, along with sophomore Bailey Jones, junior Hadley Weddle and others all contributed to the set two win. Weddle ended the match with one kill, one assist, and five digs. 

Jones was big at the net for Fairfield making multiple big stops at the net, while Moon scored a handful of points with kills against Ripley. Jones totaled 11 kills, five digs and four blocks. 

“Bailey has improved quite a lot since last year. Last year she was on JV, sitting varsity, just playing a little bit. She’s stepped up really big this year. She's going to play a big role for us for sure. She’s big at the net, her blocks, her touches, everything,” Daulton said. 

The third set was another closely played and competitive battle with the score being tied 10 times from 1-1 to 22-22.

At one point Fairfield trailed by two points at 19-17, but a big hit by junior Paisley Stalhut (four kills, 10 digs), and before that it was a point scored off a hit by Cannon that kept Fairfield close to the Ripley lead. 

Later an ace by Fairfield tied the score at 22, then the Lady Lions scored more points off a spike by Moon, a Ripley out of play hit, then the set and match ended with a solid hit by the Lady Lions for the 25-23 set win, giving Fairfield the SHAC match victory. 

“We are ready to move forward. It's going to be a long week, so just being prepared is important,” Daulton said. 

Other stat totals for the Lady Lions included: senior Emma Ayers (four digs), senior Alyssa Bales (17 digs), and junior Jorja May (one kill, one assist, 11 digs). Team totals for Fairfield were 37 kills, 32 assists, 10 aces, 95 digs and eight blocks. 

Next for Fairfield is another SHAC match on Thursday, Aug. 27 at home against the Fayetteville Lady Rockets.