CALEDONIA — First, they danced.
There were still pictures to take, relatives to greet and hugs to exchange, but right after the Caledonia volleyball team finished off a sweep of Corinth in Thursday’s first-round playoff match, the ‘Feds hit the dance floor.
Joined by a few Caledonia students, including a young man wielding a broom in symbolic celebration, the team danced along to the Cupid Shuffle for a few minutes before dispersing joyfully across their home court.
The dance party was the fitting culmination of a match that Caledonia simply dominated, winning 3-0 to send Corinth home with a straight-set loss and move on to Tuesday’s second round. Set scores were 25-20, 25-11, 25-13.
“To play a team like that and to play them the way we did and sweep them was amazing,” Caledonia coach Samantha Brooks said.
Both coach Brooks and her daughter, senior outside hitter Tori Brooks, agreed that Corinth closely resembled the ‘Feds — both teams are consistent playoff squads, and both have seven seniors on the roster — so such a dominating win gives Caledonia nothing but confidence going forward.
That confidence was on display from the very start Thursday, with nearly every ‘Feds point punctuated by a shout of exultation and a gesture of celebration.
At few moments was the home gym louder than when Caledonia junior Zoe Hansen finished off the first set with a kill, putting an official end to a Corinth comeback that cut a seven-point lead to two at 22-20. But Hansen and Tori Brooks alternated kills before Hansen put an emphatic end to the set.
“Whenever we win a close set, we figure out that we can’t play sluggish, that we have to step up and really put it away,” Tori Brooks said.
The ‘Feds did that excellently, winning the first four points of the second set and forcing Corinth to call timeout. Caledonia proceeded to win the next point to make it 5-0.
“Whenever we get up, we just keep going,” Tori Brooks said.
The ‘Feds never trailed by more than four points the rest of the set, cruising to a 25-11 win thanks to a plethora of miscues by the visiting Warriors: missed serves, mishits and miscommunication.
“I don’t know if it was the traveling or the nerves,” coach Brooks said. “They seemed to not play together as well as I thought they would have.”
She said she understood why Corinth might be prone to a bad performance under the pressure of the playoffs.
“There’s a lot at stake,” Brooks said. “It was somebody’s last game tonight.”
When the ‘Feds won the first four points of the third set, it became pretty clear that it was far from Caledonia’s last match. Tori Brooks had three kills in a seven-point stretch wherein the home team stretched a 14-9 lead to a 21-9 blowout. Eight points later, it was over.
Tori Brooks credited the team’s recent trip to New Albany to watch Corinth play to the success the ‘Feds found all match.
“We knew their weakness,” Brooks said. “We knew what hitters ran, what they hit. We were able to capitalize on that and work on it in practice. We were ready for it.”
Being able to put the Warriors away in three sets was crucial for the Caledonia coach, who said her team isn’t always consistent in its play.
“Sometimes we play to our competition,” coach Brooks said. “Sometimes we really jump on it and take the lead and move with it.”
She stressed that Caledonia’s strong all-around play Thursday was a total team effort — not just from the ‘Feds’ senior class but from its juniors, too. Hansen and Megan Chandler played particularly well.
“Everybody that got playing time contributed,” coach Brooks said. “That’s so important for them to know, ‘Hey, I did something amazing. Hey, I did this.'”
As a whole, Caledonia pulled off a dominating win over a team with a 28-4 regular-season record. The ‘Feds will head into Tuesday’s second-round matchup against Lanier with plenty of assurance.
“I think it was crucial to pushing us forward into the next round,” coach Brooks said. “That kind of a win.”
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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