Forget the rules, I’m getting married

When you grow up in the south, you’re always told not to get married on a Saturday in the fall.

DALTON MIDDLETON Sports Editor

I honestly always thought I agreed with it. With my family all being from Foley, I grew up an Alabama fan. I watched the Crimson Tide every Saturday and I enjoyed some national championships.

We moved to Mississippi when we were pre-teens, and I slowly became a Mississippi State fan. I dropped my Alabama fandom and went to school at Mississippi State.

So now instead of enjoying watching Alabama beat teams by 60 each week, I’m usually getting mad watching Mississippi State struggle with some mid-major team.

But I, along with my fiancé, decided to break the rules.

By the time anyone reads this column, I will be married. Gillian and I got married this past Saturday, Oct. 15, in Hattiesburg.

If you would like a little backstory, I’ll give you some. If you don’t, skip through this next part.

Gillian and I met just over seven years ago in Hattiesburg. We met the night before I college football game. I was in town covering Mississippi State and I met her at a concert where she was there with a high school friend of mine.

She was enjoying the band, and I was getting drunk. We hit it off instantly and started dating a few months later and did long distance for a while. Fast forward seven years later and we’re finally living

By Henry Zimmer Sports Editor

The Elmore County volleyball team continued its 13-year run of dominance on Wednesday night.

The Lady Panthers swept past Holtville and Marbury, both by a score of 3-0, to claim the AHSAA Class 5A, Area 7 volleyball championship.

Elmore County has now won 13 consecutive area championships and the Lady Panthers (2612) advance to the regional tournament held at the Cramton Bowl next week in Montgomery.

“It’s incredible,” head coach Kim Moncrief said. “The girls work very hard and I’m proud of them. This is something that every team here sets out to do. They want to continue the streak and this team is no different. They want to move on to regionals and states, so it’s not over yet. But it’s an incredible feeling.”

Elmore County first took on No. 4 seed Holtville in the semifinals, and the Lady Panthers wasted no time taking care of business with a 3-0 win.

Elmore County won each set 25-7, 25-11, and 25-10. They jumped out as fast as they possible could as they led 17-2 just four minutes of play in the first set.

After sitting down while Marbury beat Tallassee, 3-1 (25-22, 17-25, 25-13, 25-18), Elmore County took the court again for the championship. They were even more dominant than they were in the semifinals.

They beat Marbury 3-0 (25-8, 25-13, 25-5).

After going down early in the second set, the Lady Panthers 38-5 across the rest of the two sets.

“I just saw a lot of grit, but I saw them still working on some things we’ve been doing in practice,” Moncrief said. “They worked on some different sets and worked on knowing when we need to pull some tricks out of our hat as we move forward. We worked on our spot serving tonight and that should help us going forward as well. We were able to incorporate some things and that was really good.”

After cruising past Marbury in the first set, Elmore County and Marbury went back-and-forth for the first bit of the second set that featured multiple non-starters for Elmore County on the floor.

The Lady Bulldogs led, 13-12, but then Elmore County got back in its groove.

The Lady Panthers scored six straight to force a timeout with an 18-13 lead, then they went on to score seven more consecutive points to take the set.

“Morgan (Spear) got in a bunch of spot serves there and was able to come through with hitting where we needed her to go,” Moncrief said.”We also found some consistency and got into a groove. We play different people and in volleyball, when you do that, you have to get back in the swing of things with a different group on the court. They got gelled together and pushed through.”