Columbus wins 12th area volleyball championship

Columbus finally got on a roll with its serve made quick work of the third set to win the Area 1-4A tournament championship 3-0 on Thursday night.

The Lady Blue Devils won 25-17, 25-18, 25-6 for their 12th area title.

“Northside has a really strong team, and they fought us,” Columbus coach Donna Fleming said. “The first two sets we had to play our ‘A’ game to be able to beat them. Then in the third set, we went on a roll with our serves and we were able to score pretty easily.”

Columbus took the early lead in both of the first two sets. Northside made its runs, but except for a 2-2 tie early in the first set, the Lady Patriots were unable to catch Columbus.

In the third set after Northside won a point to pull within 2-1, Columbus scored the next 11 points to lead 13-1.

Columbus had no service errors in the third set after committing 11 in the first two sets.

“We had some missed serves. Our philosophy is to be aggressive with our serves, and I can handle some misses after we have go on some runs,” Fleming said. “But if you go back and miss your first one, that is not good. When you move into the playoffs, you can not miss six, seven or eight serves in a set or you will not be winning that set.”

Columbus won its third state championship last year while playing in Class 5A. The Lady Blue Devils dropped back to 4A for this season. They won a 4A title in 2013.

“We have had a strong season,” Fleming said. “We have a strong senior group, but 4A is really tough.

“We are going to have to fight to advance each week in the playoffs. With the seven seniors, we are going to go as far as we can.”

In earlier matches, Columbus beat Northside 2-0 to advance to the title match. Shaw beat Carver in an elimination match. Northside then beat Shaw 2-0 to also advance to the title match.

Columbus will host the No. 4 seed from Area 6 in the first round of the state playoffs on Thursday. Northside will host the No. 3 seed. Shaw will travel to the No. 2 seed, and Carver will travel to the Area 6 champion.

This story was originally published October 6, 2016 at 10:00 PM with the headline "Columbus wins 12th area volleyball championship."