Holy Innocents' Wins 3rd Straight Volleyball State Championship

By Dunn Neugebauer

Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School (HIES) won its third straight State volleyball championship Oct. 31 by beating Lovett in the finals for the second year in a row. The Lady Bears took the match by scores of 25-19, 23-25, 25-22, 25-17 in a win that made school athletic history.

HIES had cruised past Bremen, Coosa, and St. Vincent’s—all in straight sets—to set up Saturday’s finale in front of a packed home crowd dressed in black.

The opening set was tied early at 5, but HIES gradually pulled away behind a balanced offense and particularly good serving from Nicole Cohen, Holly Barrett, Helaina Theos, and Kat Glover. Kathleen Ford ended the 25-19 set with a kill in the corner.

Lovett fought back, though, and erased a 20-16 HIES second-set lead before storming to a 25-23 win to tie the match.

“I told them at that point that this was going to be the last volleyball match most of them would ever play,” Holy Innocents’ Coach Taylor Noland said. “The bottom line was, as long as they all left it all out there on the court, then the result would take care of itself.”

And it did.

At the end of Saturday’s State championship match, a spirited Holy Innocents’ crowd erupted in the HIES Main Gym. And the crowd chanted, “Three-peat!” as team members hoisted the State championship trophy once again.

Eight talented seniors will graduate in 2016—Haley Collins, Sarah Porter, Kathleen Ford, Helaina Theos, Nicole Cohen, Holly Barrett, Kat Glover, and Joanna Wright. Other major contributors all season were Amelia Rempe, Kat O’Connor, Tyler Dobson, Kate Chesser and Ashley Mathison.

Two years ago, Noland became the only coach in GHSA history to win state titles both as a player and as a coach.