By GRAHAM CARR / Staff Writer

NORTH SHELBY – Oak Mountain High School cruised to a 3-0 (25-17, 25-15, 25-21) win on the road over Briarwood Christian School on Thursday, Sept 13.

Oak Mountain coach Lance Woods liked how his team bounced back from their first loss of the season to Mountain Brook High School. He said he was glad he was able to play a lot of players.

“Our bench had a lot of good hits tonight,” Woods said.

Oak Mountain was led by Rosemary Wendel with 11 assists and six aces.  Madison Pierce added five kills and three blocks. Amy Ritenour chipped in 11 digs for the Eagles.

Briarwood Christian coach Tien Le was not happy in the way his team played.

“We are a much better team than how we played tonight,” Le said. “We knew coming in that Oak Mountain was more talented than we were, but that has nothing to do with our performance and how well we should play.”

Briarwood was led by Mariah Light with three kills and two blocks. Madison Chambers added three kills. Adeline Reiser had a solid night with six assists and two aces while Christie Robertson added four assists.  The Lions were led in digs by Abby Parks with 10 and Hope Donohue with six.

In the first set, Oak Mountain used a 7-1 run to break open a 14-9 score to a 21-10 lead and the Eagles held off a late Briarwood rally to win 25-17.

In the second set, Oak Mountain again used a huge run to coast a win.  The Eagles went on a 8-2 run stretching a 9-7 game to a 17-9 game. Oak Mountain did not look back and won 25-15.

In the final set, Oak Mountain started rotating a lot of different players into the game.  This allowed Briarwood to take a 13-8 lead at the midway point, but Oak Mountain went on a 11-2 run and regained the lead at 19-15.   Briarwood fought back and took the lead again at 21-19. In the end though the Eagles were too strong and finished on a 6-0 run behind Hannah Beach’s strong serving.