By Justin Fedich | The Selma Times-Journal

It was just a scrimmage, but it sure didn’t feel like it when Meadowview Christian and Morgan Academy reached a fifth set in the varsity girls’ volleyball match on Tuesday.

Meadowview won the scrimmage against Morgan, but the match didn’t come without drama.

The Trojans took the first two sets 25-23 and 25-22, but the Senators stormed back in the match with a 25-6 win in the third set and also took the fourth to tie things up.

At one side of Morgan Academy gymnasium, Meadowview head coach Tim Burton was expressing his disappointment in his varsity girls for letting up a strong lead.  He wanted his team to describe how they played in sets three and four.

“I asked the team if they had a name for it and they said it wouldn’t be appropriate to say,” Burton said.

On the other end of the gym, Morgan head coach Caroline Averitt was using all her energy to motivate her team. Although it was a scrimmage, Averitt was treating the match as much more than a meaningless game.

She told the team right before the fifth set that they could celebrate like they had won the national championship when it was over.

“Go take what’s yours,” Averitt said to her players.

Ultimately, Meadowview pulled out the five-set victory with a 15-8 win in the fifth set. The win gave Meadowview the sweep on the day as the Trojans’ junior varsity team also defeated the Senators.

Burton said he was proud of his junior varsity girls because it was the first game for most of the players. He was most impressed with their serving and their resilience as a team to keep fighting.

“To get them on the floor for a whole game and play against somebody that they’ve never seen, that’s a big step for them going forward,” Burton said.

Meadowview’s varsity girls team came into Tuesday evening’s match with some experience. After finishing in third place at the 12-team Tiger Jam Volleyball Tournament in Oxford last weekend, the Trojans already had confidence they could compete with Morgan.

While Burton wished the team had played a more consistent game, he was proud of the team for pulling the victory out in the end.

“We came back a little bit and played and finished it out,” Burton said. “The first two games, it was looking like what I was expecting.”

Meadowview won’t play again until next week, but Morgan will be back in its gym on Thursday.

The Senators begin their season on Thursday at home against Tuscaloosa. The junior varsity game starts at 4 p.m. and the varsity game will follow.