GDW Analysis:
Ava Ray made it a memorable evening for her as did the rest of her Cullman volleyball teammates.
Ray reached 1,000 kills in her career and Cullman knocked off a competitive Homewood team Tuesday at Bearcat Arena 3 games to 1.
Cullman won the first two sets 25 to 18 and 25 to 23.
Homewood managed to gain momentum in the 3rd set 25 to 20 and had the Lady 'Cats down in the 4th set at 13 to 10.
Ray, one of six seniors for coach Amy Hudson, started a run of inspirational play with a pair of kills to put the Lady 'Cats ahead at 14 to 13.
She would get two more kills in this surge of 11 straight points on serve for Cullman.
The main weapon at the service line was senior Livy Smith. Smith was handling that part of the process and others contributing in this segment were Olivia Dover, LK Granger and Blakely Brannon.
Cullman went up 21 to 13 when Homewood broke their serve.
Some serves by Homewood resulted in Cullman points plus a kill by Brannon and the set winner on a kill from Karina Harris at 6:44 p.m.
The four set match was played in 1 hour, 42 minutes.
Ray, Dover, Smith and Harris started for the final time on the Bearcat Arena floor.
This group of seniors compiled 6 wins out of 8 assignments, a winning percentage of .750. Cullman is 20 & 18 overall with better than 78 percent of its season being played away from Bearcat Arena.
Hudson's quad is the third in local volleyball to have at least 20 victories on the season, joining Vinemont and Good Hope in this category.
The Lady 'Cats now have won four in a row as they will be involved in a quad match Saturday at Muscle Shoals.
The AHSAA area playoffs will be next week with Cullman to be in Area 11 at top seed Jasper.
The 1,000th kill for Ray came early in the 3rd set as play was stopped to recognize the moment for the Cullman outside hitter.
She shared a photo with teammate Clementine Hollingsworth that was captured by Gameday Weekly.
Cullman's Ava Ray holding a game ball after she got her 1,000th kill Tuesday at Bearcat Arena vs. Homewood.
Joining her in the photo is teammate Clementine Hollingsworth.
GDW photo by Johnny Thornton.
