By Thomas Grant Jr.
Shonda Wallace arrived at Gray Collegiate Academy after serving as a volleyball assistant at the University of South and found herself in an unexpected situation.
The first-year Lady War Eagles’ head coach found her team in the same situation as the football team this fall. They saw their planned Region 4-2A games canceled as a result of forfeits by the opposing schools.
“I was not made aware that this was going to happen until probably once school started and there were like rumblings that maybe some teams are going to cancel on us. But even then, I thought it would be 1-2 teams. I wasn’t aware that it was going to be the whole region.”
Complicating matters for Gray Collegiate, according to Wallace, was finding replacement opponents in the middle of the season.
“The other sports at our school were lucky because they had time to schedule other matches in place of their region matches,” she said. “As far as us, I was in the middle of the season trying to scramble and find teams to play us while we were in season. So it was really tough trying to just get people to fill those dates that we had.”
Gray Collegiate ran into the problem of other schools being unable or unwilling to schedule it. Fortunately, the school had already scheduled a high level of non-region matches and tournaments such as the one this past weekend at Cardinal Newman to have a competitive schedule.
The Lady War Eagles also held several intrasquad scrimmages against each other and the junior varsity team. As they prepare to open the Class 2A playoffs Wednesday against Greenville Tech, Wallace believes they were able to get playoff-ready by facing teams in higher classifications.
“We played a lot of 4A, 5A schools I think which help prepare us for what we’re going to see in the playoffs,” she said. “So we’re playing some tough matches, playing some tough teams. But I think playing tough teams prepares you a little bit better and I keep telling my girls we got in as much practice as anybody in our region this year. So we should be prepared to play in those matches.”
S.C. HIGH SCHOOL LEAGUE VOLLEYBALL PLAYOFF SCHEDULE
(Wednesday’s Games)
Class 5A
Boiling Springs at River Bluff
Chapin at Gaffney
Stratford at Lexington
Dutch Fork at Wando
Class 2A
Greenville Tech at Gray Collegiate
Fairfield Central at Pelion
(Thursday’s Matches)
Class 3A
Swansea at Camden
Lake City at Gilbert
