Bees Roll into South District Championship

TOURNAMENT CENTRAL 

MESQUITE, Texas – Dallas College Eastfield's top-ranked volleyball team beat Dallas College Brookhaven, 25-19, 25-16, 25-14, Friday night in the National Junior College Athletic Association Division III South District semifinals.

The No. 1-seeded Harvester Bees (29-1) will host third-seeded Dallas College North Lake (19-16) in Saturday's 1 p.m. championship match. It is the second straight year the two teams advanced to the championship. Eastfield won last year's title, 3-1. Saturday's championship will air on TSBN.

Eastfield's McKenzie Anderson had 10 kills and two blocks, and hit .292. Azoria Davis had eight kills and a block. Brenly Walker had seven kills, 14 digs, two blocks and an ace. Carli Banks had seven kills, two aces and eight digs. Taryn Doiron had 32 assists and 12 digs. Ava Cole had 12 digs and two aces.

Doiron surpassed 1,000 assists this season. She has 1,029 entering Saturday's championship. 

After drawing even at 13 in the opening set on Brooke Tyler's serve, Brookhaven (15-14) grabbed the lead on a service point by McKenzie Mitchell. The Bears bumped the lead to 17-15, following two Harvester Bees attack errors. With Banks serving, Eastfield stormed out of two timeouts to run off the next eight points, using kills by Anderson and Davis to jump ahead 23-17. The Bees put the set away four serves later.

In the second set, Walker's ace put Eastfield on top, 14-10. Banks' ace and a Bears error widened the gap to 19-12. With Caroline Simpson serving, Brookhaven pulled within 22-16 on Lauren Howson's kill. But Cole's ace and a putaway by Walker gave the Harvesters a 2-0 lead in the match.

Ranked No. 1 in the country, Eastfield hit .333 with no errors in 33 attempts in the second set.

Brookhaven drew within 13-10 in the third set on a kill by Sarah Parr. Eastfield extended its lead to 21-11 before Howson's winner at the net made it 21-13. But Kendall Wilson's block and an ace by Cole sent the Bees on to the championship.

Eastfield hit .406 in the third set, putting down 14 kills, while committing just one error in 32 swings.

Simpson finished with nine kills and 11 digs, while hitting .273. Howson had five kills, a block and a .400 attack percentage. Mitchell had 12 digs, and Fiona Larsen 11. Tyler had 10 assists and an ace, and Emma Borders nine assists and an ace. Lyrick Bridges had three blocks.

Both teams had four blocks. Eastfield had five aces to Brookhaven's two.

It was the fourth consecutive sweep for the Harvester Bees and their 24^th this season.