Lady Badgers Give Ring First Victory in Opener

Head Coach Beth Ring took home her first collegiate victory on Friday night as the Spring Hill College volleyball team took a 3-1 victory away from the visiting Millsaps College Majors in the first day of the Spring Hill Classic. “I was glad that we saw a lot of different situations tonight,” Ring commented after the game, “We were comfortably ahead in the first game, behind most of the second game and played very close third and fourth games.” In the first game, the Lady Badgers (1-0) used eight-point runs on two separate occasions to win 30-10. During the second game Millsaps (0-1) seemed to find its rhythm and took advantage of poor serving by Spring Hill to win 30-26. “Serving really hurt us in that second game,” observed Ring, “but we made some changes and adjusted well for the next two games.” A crucial moment in the match came during the third game with Spring Hill ahead 15-12 and then lost a long and hard-fought point to the Majors from Jackson, Miss. Spring answered the disappointment of that point by taking the next two and stretching their lead to 17-13 before going on to win the game 30-22. Ring agreed that it was a critical moment, “Our team calls those ‘crazy balls’ and we talked about it during the time out and how important it was to answer it.” Spring Hill’s conditioning came into play during the fourth and final game as they appeared to have stronger legs than the Majors in the 30-25 score. “We don’t want (our conditioning) to lag,” remarked Ring, “but I was pleased with it.” Senior captains Lindsey Schmidt from Chicago, Ill., and Kristen Phillips of St. Louis, Mo., each played excellent games and afterward Ring pointed to them as major factors in the outcome stating that she was proud to see them able to lead the team throughout the night. Spring Hill will now play Dillard at 11 a.m. and Martin Methodist at 3 p.m. on Saturday in the final day of the Spring Hill Classic. Earlier on Friday, Martin Methodist defeated Dillard 3-1.