Lady Roadrunners laying foundation for volleyball success
By Ken Lay
Despite watching her team go through some growing pains, Austin-East High School volleyball coach Lori Haskell remains upbeat and certain that she will have a competitive program soon.
“We’re playing hard. We’re competing,” Haskell said after the Lady Roadrunners lost, 25-16, 25-16, 25-12, at West High Wednesday night. “I’m really proud of these girls.
“We’re playing some tough competition and we’re getting to the point where we can almost play with anybody.”
The Lady Roadrunners, who dropped to 2-23 with the midweek loss, are not only earning praise from Haskell, who is in her third year as head coach at Austin-East. They’ve also caught the attention of opposing coaches who have won district and region championships. The Lady Roadrunners played in the Summer Splashdown in Clinton over Labor Day Weekend and they impressed Lady Dragons’ head coach Lorri Johnson.
“Austin-East is getting better,” said Johnson, a former head coach at Central High School who guided Clinton to its first District 3-3A Tournament championship in school history in 2023. “Lori has been over there for a few years and you can really see them getting better.
“They came over here and spent their holiday weekend in our tournament with us and we appreciate them doing that.”
Central coach Susan Davidson, who once led Farragut to three consecutive Class 3A state championship match appearances, shared Johnson’s sentiments.
“Lori is doing a great job over there and they’re really getting better,” Davidson said of the Lady Roadrunners.
West High coach Jessica Lee also had high praise for Haskell and Austin-East.
“They’re really trying and they’re getting better,” said Lee, who has seen her team defeat the Lady Roadrunners twice this season. “We play them every year and we respect them and what they’re doing.
“They have two teams (varsity and JV) and they used to not have two teams.”
Lee said that she certainly understands Austin-East’s plight. She certainly does. The Lady Rebels now boast one of Knoxville’s most competitive programs. They’ve won district championships in recent years as a member of District 3-3A.
Now back in District 4-3A, West improved to 15-10 overall and had a 2-4 league record late last week.
But Lee remembers when she had a struggling team.
“We were there,” Lee said.
Lee inherited a program that had fallen on lean times after having success under previous head coach Debby Jones and had to rebuild the program almost from scratch. The Lady Rebels took their lumps but after years of hard work, they are now a competitive force on the local high school volleyball scene.
“We’ve lost some games (this year) that we really shouldn’t have lost but we have a winning record and we’ve played well against Bearden, took a set from William Blount and we’ve beaten Heritage,” Lee said.
West returned to District 4 last year and things didn’t go well. But this year, things are looking up for the Lady Rebels.
And a few miles to the east, the future is bright for the Lady Roadrunners.
“There’s such great competition in this town, and you have great teams,” Haskell said. “But soon, we’re going to walk out of some matches like this, and we’re going to walk out winners.”
The Lady Runners showed some flashes in Marble City Wednesday night. They had leads in each of the first two sets.
Kelani Wells finished the match with six kills, two aces and one block. Aniyah Baldwin and Ari’Ajia Gadison had five kills each. TaDasha Harper had eight digs.
