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There would be no tears after this season's final home game for the Heritage volleyball team.

Just cheers.

That's because the Lady Patriots smacked down Lakeside-DeKalb 3-0 (25-18, 25-13, 25-17) at home in the second round of the Georgia State Volleyball Tournament, advancing to the Elite Eight. Heritage travels to Marist High School on Saturday for the final rounds of tourney play, beginning at 10 a.m.

"These girls are such a good group," said Heritage coach David Buddenbaum. "They enjoy playing and working hard, and they took care of business today."

The Lady Patriots, who have won eight straight games dating back to the regular season, haven’t lost in nearly a month and are starting to spark at just the right time.

Tuesday night, Heritage lit the competition up.

“We had a presence out there tonight,” Buddenbaum said. “Our defense was incredible on the back row. Our offense was hitting the ball. Our setters did a good job of passing the ball around. I felt we wee in control of the game the whole time.”

Lakeside, a better team than Heritage’s first round opponent North Clayton, met the same fate as the South Atlantans did last Thursday. The Lady Patriots bombarded the Lady Vikings early and hung on late in the first and third games of the match, sandwiching a slight second-game struggle in between.

MiKayla Charles had 17 kills and four aces, while Bailey added 11 kills and six blocks (four in the final game alone).
Focus was the only real opponent at times for the Lady Pats — they had to regroup to put away their foes after sporting a 21-8 lead in the first game and a 13-3 advantage in the third — but no real matter to worry about in the end as they kept Lakeside without a even a single game to send them on their way.

Still, while it wasn’t as quite as easy on the court as the score reads on paper, a shutout is a shutout. Buddenbaum’s squad will move on to the Elite Eight — hosted by Marist in its home gym — to play an uncertain team and uncertain time. That’s all up to the seeding committee now.

What’s up to Heritage is the task of playing at a high enough rate to bring home a State Championship.
As of now, things have been pretty great on the way to the, well, you might guess the rhyme.

“With a big win today and an upset or two across the state, I feel good about our chances,” Buddenbaum said. “We are going to play our best out there, regardless.”