Lady Railroaders plays better than a No. 17 seed in competitive tournament loss to Southeastern
COVINGTON – The No. No. 17 seed Bradford Lady Railroaders fell the No. 5 seed Southeastern Lady Trojans in first round OHSAA DIV volleyball tournament action but not before making Southeastern earn the win.
“I think we kind of surprised them which is good,” said Bradford coach, Alisha Patty. “My girls came out to play. I have seven seniors and that was their last game. They wanted to play good and they had fun.”
The Lady Railroaders looked like a much better team than a No. 17 seed team in the first and last sets of the night in dropping the opening set 25-20.
“We come out hot,” Patty said. “I was really surprised. Southeastern is a really good hitting team. We had two girls that had to sit out the first game so I was a little nervous on how it would go so I messed with the lineup.”
The second set showed why the Lady Trojans were the higher seed team taking a 17-4 lead on its way to a 25-7 win.
“The second game I put my original lineup in and it just didn’t go so I went back to the first lineup and then add the two girls,” said Patty. “It ended up working for us.”
The Bradford Lady Railroaders, a team with seven seniors left it all on the court in the final set playing like a high seed team while taking Southeastern to the wire with the game tied at 9-9, 10-10, 12-12, 13-13, 15-15 and 16-16.
The Lady Trojans held a 21-20 lead and would close out the night, scoring 4-3 over Bradford to take the final set 25-23 ending the season for the Lady Railroaders.
“Southeastern is a good hitting team,” noted Patty. “Warming up I was really impressed with them. We are just that one step behind and comes when they are a five seed and we’re a 17 seed.”
Senior Lady Railroaders playing their final volleyball match for the Orange and Black: Zoe Brewer, Rylee Canan, Abby Fike, Maddie Simons, Ramse Smith, Karissa Weldy and Nylani Beireis.
“Four of the seven seniors are returning lettermen,” said Coach Patty. “The other three played JV up until this year and when they came here they made an impact.”
“Losing them is going to be really hard,” Patty continued. “They have a lot of leadership, the girls really look up to them and they are the ones you could say, go do this in practice and they are going to go do it and they are going to work hard at it. You don’t have to watch them 24/7 so it will be really hard to replace them.”




