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ROGERSVILLE – Grainger rallied in the last two games to take a 3-2 (19-25, 25-15, 22-25, 27-25, 15-10) volleyball win over Cherokee Tuesday night.

The Lady Grizzlies have been hit by the injury bug hard in recent weeks as head coach Jessica Maxey said her bench was depleted but answered the call. “We are down to 12 players between the varsity and junior varsity teams. It took everyone on our bench tonight as we played three freshmen and two girls who had never been on the court in a varsity game but we were able to get a win.”

Cherokee took advantage of Grainger’s poor serving in the first game to build up a quick lead and controlled the rest of the opening set as they won 25-19. “Serving has been an issue the last few games as well as staying healthy,” Maxey said of the slow start by Grainger. Things turned around to begin game two as the Lady Grizz had several service aces to grab an early lead and it was their turn to cruise to an easy win 25-15. Maxey pointed to one thing that allowed her team to triumph in the second game. “We learned that we had to let a bad game go, we just have to reset and start over.”

Game three saw the Lady Chiefs double up Grainger 14-7 before the Lady Grizzlies responded to pull within a few points to make things tight. The lead shrank to only a point late but Cherokee was able to get the final points they needed to win 25-22. The fourth game was a marathon between the two teams before Grainger won 27-25. It appeared the Lady Grizzlies were about to put the game away when they staked claim to a 23-17 advantage but Cherokee wouldn’t go quietly and they tied the game on several occasions before Grainger was able to win by two at 27-25. “Sometimes it’s hard to take out players who you have a lot of confidence in but they are just not having good games,” Maxey said of her need to switch the lineup around in game four. “That’s hard but we had to stick in a freshman and a sophomore who hadn’t played varsity and we put them in a big spot and told them we had a job we needed them to do and they responded.”

With the match tied at two game each, a decisive fifth game saw Cherokee take an early lead before Maddie Hurst led the Grainger rally. Hurst was able to record two kills where she found an opening in the Lady Chiefs’ defense in the back left part of the court and then followed that up with a dink over the net to bring things to match point. Hurst put an exclamation point on her final kill with a hard spike that produced the 15-10 tally in the last game and gave Grainger the win. “Maddie is a smart player and is a smart player for a reason,” Maxey said. “She is our leader and the way she has stepped up this year and led us has been incredible. We have nine freshmen and sophomores and she has led them and that’s not easy to do since there is a lot of instructing that goes on with that but she does a good job with all of that.”

Cherokee takes on Volunteer in an intra-county matchup on Thursday and Grainger faces Union County.