State Title LADY WARRIORS C R U I S E
T
T O
by Steve Gamel | photos courtesy of Allison Fifer
he first thing Liberty Christian volleyball coach Kim Grizzle did when she woke up on November 22 was grab her cellphone and send a quick group text to every player on her team. The message: “Good morning, state champions!”
Not since 2006 had anyone in the Liberty
6A state title. Liberty trailed two games to
wanted to be the first to utter them.
set. The fifth and final set was tied at 13
program heard those words, and Grizzle “I’m not sure it sunk in for us yet. I just remember waking up that morning
thinking how glad I was to be on this side
one before decisively winning the fourth when Madison Morrow dropped in a
quick kill, followed by a long hitting error by St. Agnes.
of it,” Grizzle said with a laugh. “These girls
Morrow finished with 20 kills, 13 digs, four
they would have accepted anything less.”
12 blocks, 10 kills, eight digs, and three
decided this was their year. I don’t think The Lady Warriors (31-1) weren’t
considered the favorite coming in, as St.
Agnes (17-5) had won 18 state titles. But
blocks, and two aces. Jadyn Fife recorded aces, while sophomore setter Reagan Fifer tallied 40 assists, eight digs, and seven blocks.
they weren’t to be denied, capping a
Ella Grace Barr, who missed most of the
25, 25-14, 15-13 win to claim the TAPPS
force to chip in 10 kills.
dominant season with a 25-22, 22-25, 21-
regular season with an injury, returned in It was Liberty’s third appearance at the state tournament and its first since 2007. They won it all in 2006. “[St. Agnes] is really good, and really big,” Grizzle said. “We aren’t that big, and we don’t have players who play high-level club ball like they do. So going in, I told Reagan, ‘we have got to keep our hitters off the net. If we swing into that big block, we will lose.’ So we intentionally set our hitters back five feet and hit everything deep. We tried to hit the deep corners, and we saw a few quirks in film. And all of it just seemed to work.” The game plan was a microcosm for how everything went for Liberty this season. The Lady Warriors’ only loss was to Gunter,
38 | ARGYLE LIVING | DECEMBER 2020
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