LOUISVILLE – The South Warren volleyball team extended its season with a 3-0 (25-16, 25-12, 25-11) win over Letcher County Central in the opening round of the KHSAA state volleyball tournament Friday at Valley High School.

South Warren (22-19) used strong serves and a balanced attack at the net to cruise past Letcher County Central and improve to 3-0 all-time in opening-round games of the state tournament.

“I told them I just wanted them to smile and enjoy this time and just go and do what we’ve been doing the last few weeks and we will be fine,” South Warren coach Justin Griffin said. “We played well enough to win, so it’s always good.”

It was the second time in three years the Spartans faced Letcher County Central (22-10) in the opening round of the state tournament, with South Warren once again getting the sweep.

South Warren never trailed in game one, scoring five of the first six points. Letcher County Central got three straight points to close within 5-4, but a kill from Hannah Yonts stopped the run and the Spartans steadily pulled away from there.

The Spartans had eight aces in game one from six different players. Mary Pitts and Nina Vespa had two aces each, while Yonts and Sophie Pemberton had four kills each.

“We wanted to go out and serve as tough as we can without making too many errors,” Griffin said. “I felt like we did a good job of serving a good aggressive ball. We were able to get them out of system a lot, so that helped us out on our side.”

Pemberton opened game two with three straight aces to give South Warren a lead that it wouldn’t relinquish. The Lady Cougars closed to two points on several occasions before the Spartans used a 9-2 spurt to put the game away.

South Warren closed out the match with a quick game three victory, opening the set with six straight points. Letcher County Central didn’t get closer than four points the rest of the way.

“We came in pretty focused,” Pemberton said. “We knew what we had to do. We didn’t know much about Letcher County. We just tried our best. I think we did pretty well. We could have played a little better, but we are looking forward to tomorrow.”

Yonts had 10 kills for the Spartans, while Pemberton added eight kills and six aces. South Warren had 15 aces in the match.

“It’s really important to win and continue on,” Yonts said. “I was glad we were able to do that this morning. We got our nerves out the first couple of points and were able to continue on and win in three straight sets, so that is great.”

Sydney Clayton finished with 34 assists, while Makenzie Allen led the Spartans with eight digs.

South Warren will face either Paul Laurence Dunbar or Rowan County, who play at 1 p.m. CDT Friday, in Saturday’s quarterfinal at 10:30 a.m. CDT.

“We get to enjoy it a little bit now, just kind of take in all this experience and watch some games today and enjoy being here,” Griffin said.{&end}