Fairfield, Washington, Mt. Pleasant kick off SEC tournament

FORT MADISON — With just two weeks left in the Iowa high school volleyball regular season, conferences around the state are beginning their end of the year tournaments.

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For the Southeast Conference that day began on Tuesday.

Mt. Pleasant, Washington and Fairfield gathered in Fort Madison, alongside Keokuk, Burlington and the Bloodhounds for the SEC Conference Tournament first round.

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As the SEC has been throughout the year, it was yet another day of competitive action.

At the end of the day, two Union area squads sit atop of the SEC tournament rankings heading into round two next Tuesday.

The two teams leading are Fairfield and Washington.

Both the Trojans and Demons finished the round with a 3-0 record.

Mt. Pleasant ended its day with a 1-2 record.

Fairfield got it’s first round going against Burlington.

A rematch of last year’s top two SEC squads, gave fans quite the battle.

Fairfield and Burlington slugged it out in the two opening sets, as each were decided by two points.

The Trojans took the first 25-23 before Burlington notched a 27-25 victory in the second to send it to a third.

In the final set, Burlington led Fairfield 5-4, but the Trojans rattled off five straight points, sparked by a kill and block from Jorja Haggard, to make it 9-5.

Burlington got it down to two at, 11-9, but Fairfield would never give it up.

The other two Trojan contests saw them winning 2-0. A 25-17, 25-18 victory over Keokuk followed by a 25-13, 25-13 win over Mt. Pleasant.

Washington’s first win of the tournament came against Keokuk, 2-1.

Keokuk opened up with a 25-20 victory in set one, but Washington didn’t let up.

The Demons and Chiefs were tied at late as 18-18 in the second set, but back-to-back kills from Leighton Messinger and Ella Greiner pushed Washington to a 25-22 set two victory.

In the third it was all Demons.

Washington scored four straight to start, capped off with a kill from Maci Williams and they would never lose it as Keokuk could only cut it to three.

The Demons were winners 15-9 in the third.

After that Washington grabbed a pair of victories 25-17, 25-19 over Mt. Pleasant and a 2-0 win over Fort Madison.

Mt. Pleasant started out hot on the night.

The Panthers put together an efficient performance in their first match of the night against Fort Madison.

Early on against the Bloodhounds, a kill from Zoey Atkinson broke a tie and put the Panthers up 8-7.

From then on, they would never trail.

The Panthers led by as much as eight in the first set and that came from the final point of the match.

Up to that point, Mt. Pleasant led by as much as seven, which came after Alex Scott notched back-to-back kills to make it 23-16 and a kill from Myah Starr pushed it to 24-17.

The Panthers were winners 25-17.

In the second set, it went Fort Madison’s way.

The Panthers and Bloodhounds were tied as high as 6-6, but after three straight points went Fort Madison’s way they would never trail.

Mt. Pleasant got it down to one at 18-17 and then 24-23 after a miss hit from Fort Madison, but Fort Madison got the final point needed to end it 25-23.

The third and final set saw the Panthers separated by just one at 6-5, with Mt. Pleasant leading.

However, the Panthers followed with six straight points finished off back-to-back kills from Myah Starr to propel them to a 15-6 win.

After the victory over Fort Madison, the Panthers were topped in some hard fought battles to Washington 25-17, 25-19 and Fairfield 25-13 in two sets.

The second round of the Southeast Conference Tournament is scheduled for 5 p.m. Oct. 10 at Washington.