Expectations being met for Sullivan East volleyball

BLUFF CITY — There were plenty of expectations for the Sullivan East volleyball team entering this season. So far the Patriots have answered them just fine. "We have had a lot of pressure, but it is good," Sullivan East junior libero Bella Pickering said. "We have just been really excited and we just love the game so it is really fun." Sullivan East started slow with a team comprised mostly sophomores and freshmen last season before catching fire midway through the campaign. All the Patriots did was keep winning, all the way to the Class AA state tournament in Murfreesboro. "We just all started working together," Sullivan East junior setter Jillian Fisher said. "When we all started working together it just got better and we started winning." That trend has continued this season, with Sullivan East sitting at 12-3 on the campaign, including a perfect 5-0 mark at the top of District 1-AA competition. The only losses came to a trio to talented teams at an August tournament in Knoxville. "I knew we were going to be good this year," Sullivan East head coach Brittany Scott said. "We have everybody but two people returning from last year and I thought we were really good last year. I think the people that we lost we had people that stepped right into their place and filled it and we just keep getting better." That is the plan going forward for the Patriots, which returns to the court on Monday by hosting West Ridge at a refurbished Dyer Dome, followed by a trip next weekend to Franklin to face more good teams, all with an eye toward being prepared for the postseason that begins next month. "I want to go to state and I want to win state," said Pickering, whose Patriots lost both of their matches in their first trip to state since 2021. "My goal is just to get better and just improve as a team and keep bonding because we are all really close. I feel like it is just really fun." Even when diving on a hard floor. Pickering can often be found in a prone position, keeping balls alive, while working to pass the ball to Fisher, who can then set up one of the Patriots' many capable hitters for the kill at the net. "I am trying to get the best pass I can to my setter so she can set our hitters because we have great hitters," Pickering said. "When it just really hard I am just trying to get it up, but in practice we work on it a lot so I feel like the more reps you do the more used to it you are and it gets easier as we go. You have just always got to keep working." The 5-foot-3 Pickering isn't big, but is certainly tough. She broke her toe in the preseason, but insisted on playing a few days later in the opener against Tennessee High. "There are no volleyballs that get down around her. She is hustling, if someone shanks a pass she is right there to pick it up along with pretty much the rest of our team. We don't give up," Scott said. "I guess her parents raised her that way. She is not going to quit." It is the 5-8 Fisher's job to distribute the ball to such talented sophomore hitters as 6-2 Makayla Moore, 5-10 Natalie Holt, 5-7 Audrey Easley, along with 5'9 blocking specialist Addison Pierson. "I have a lot of good hitters so I really just go between each of them and whoever is doing good that game," Fisher said. "They are very consistent, all my hitters are." Scott knows that Fisher will read the defense and find the right person for the kill. "She has a really good connection with her teammates. She was the starting setter last year as a sophomore so with them coming back again they have just been playing together for so long and she goes and gets the ball," Scott said. "Wherever the ball is at she is going to put her hands on it and get us a ball for us to hit over the net." Sullivan East graduated two seniors last year, including Sophie Johnson, who is now playing at Emory & Henry, and have no seniors on this year's squad. Scott is certainly excited to have this entire team back in 2027, but next year can wait. "Sometimes I wish we had some seniors, but where we have such a young team and how much improvement they can have and how good they already are," Pickering said, "I feel like the team will just grow each year and they are just always getting better." Scott is pleased with where Sullivan East is as the Patriots strive for an eighth state tournament appearance, having finished second in Class AAA in 1999 and 2000. "I think we are doing really good right now. I think there is always room for improvement, but I am really proud of our girls," said Scott, who is looking for the Patriots to overcome a few slow starts in recent matches. "We just have to continue to do the things that we are already doing." Do that and the Patriots expect to be ready when it matters most. "We just have to keep practicing when we have the time and just keep bonding as a team and working together," said Fisher, who's Patriots won the district, region and sectional in last year's postseason. "We want to go to state again and go further than we did last year."