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Highlands Today

Sebring dominates rival Avon Park

RYAN LAVNER/Highlands Today

Sebring's Anna West powers a spike over Avon Park's Heather Bass during the Blue Streaks' dominating three-set win on Monday night in the Red Devils gym.

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By RYAN LAVNER

Highlands Today

Published: October 21, 2009

AVON PARK - Hunched over after pulling a back muscle early Sunday morning, Sebring coach Venessa Sinness cautiously paced the sideline, making slight gestures to fire up her squad.

Not that they were needed Monday in the most recent installment of this lopsided county rivalry.

Sebring raced to a big lead in each of the three sets, beating Avon Park 25-11, 25-14, 25-7 to spoil the Red Devils' regular-season home finale.

"This is kind of what I expected," Sinness said. "Avon Park and Lake Placid is a rivalry that you always want to beat them no matter what because they're in our county, you always want to walk away with the win."

And the Blue Streaks emphatically did that, quelling upstart Avon Park's hopes for an unlikely victory with strong serves - they placed 70 of their 73 serves - and dominating net play.

Always on the defensive, always on the receiving end of Sebring's punishing kill shots, Avon Park dropped into an 11-3 hole in the first set.

It only got worse from there, as Sebring, playing without a Libero for one of the few times this season, calmly lofted the ball up to junior Anna West, who promptly drilled it off the Red Devils' forearms, leading to a 23-5 advantage.

"We just took them apart serve-receive-wise," Sinness said.

Despite persistent prodding from the boisterous student section, Avon Park fell into a similar trap in the second and third sets, absorbing some of Sebring's most punishing shots and falling behind big.

There were stretches Monday when the Red Devils held on - if only for dear life. They'd volley for 10, 20, maybe 30 seconds, only to set Sebring up for a momentum-swinging kill shot.

"I told the girls there was no pressure Monday, just get out there and play to the best of their ability," Avon Park coach Stephanie Devlin said, "and they just didn't do that. Against a team like Sebring, you can't afford to make mistakes. And we were handing them points left and right."

The Blue Streaks' biggest boppers - Brittanie Augustine, Karley Freeland and West - faced very little resistance at the net, powering shots over Avon Park's athletic, yet woefully undersized front line of attack.

"You can't give a team like Sebring the net and say, 'have at us,'" Devlin said.

Augustine recorded seven kills, three blocks and 14 assists, West added six kills and two blocks, and Freeland added four kills for the Blue Streaks, who opened an emotional - albeit bittersweet - week with a resounding victory. They played county rival Lake Placid on Tuesday night in the regular-season finale, which also was Senior Night.

"This is going to be their week," Sinness said.

Avon Park, meanwhile, will look to regroup from a disappointing effort.

The Red Devils' serves were surprisingly poor. The defense was out of sorts without its Libero, Mariah Hodge. Overall, "there was just a lack of focus," Devlin said.

"I wanted to play Sebring late in the season because when you play really good teams, you usually play up to those teams," she continued. "I wanted to have a higher level of play to challenge them before we went into the district tournament. I just hope it doesn't backfire and they lose their confidence."

Ryan Lavner can be reached at 863-386-5841 or rlavner@highlandstoday.com

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