The 10th Region volleyball championship trophy keeps finding its way back to Taylor Mill.
Scott captured back-to-back titles — and its seventh region crown since joining the region in 2012 — by defeating George Rogers Clark on the Cardinals’ home floor in Winchester, 3-1 (25-19, 25-15, 22-25, 26-24) Thursday night.
The senior group of Milyn Minor, Morgan Justice, Payton, Ryann and KaLeigh Grigsby, and Reagan Cummins will end their careers with 26 straight wins over region opponents — and now, another championship to their legacy.
“That’s who I wanted to win this for,” Scott head coach Andrea Sullivan said. “They deserve it. A lot of them have been with our program since they were in seventh or eighth grade, and they’ve worked for it.”
Payton, Morgan, Ryann and Milyn all made the All-Tournament Team. For Minor, it’s her third region title, having been part of the varsity roster since seventh grade in 2020 — the same year Scott won another title. She capped her senior region run with 35 kills.
“It feels extra special,” Minor said. “Sullivan and I still talk about that year, and we brought up pictures on the way here. We won at St. Patrick against Campbell County, and with it being another team in our district it meant a lot. And then playing here at GRC, against GRC, it means a lot being my senior year.”
While titles never get old, this one stands apart for Coach Sullivan — her first region championship with her daughter, sophomore Emory Sullivan on the floor. It’s Emory’s first season at Scott after transferring from Cooper.
Winning runs deep in the Sullivan family. Andrea’s husband, Tim Sullivan, won two region titles as Cooper’s boys basketball coach, the last with their son Elijah, and Emory’s older brother, who was a sophomore on that team.
“It’s really emotional,” Andrea Sullivan said. “I always want her to win — on the court, on the field, in life. For her to be with me now and win this, and to be in such a big role for us as libero, the job she did this week… I’m extremely proud of her.”
Emory added her own milestone to the family legacy, breaking Scott’s single-season digs record. Neither she nor her mother knew she had done it until she looked up during the match and saw a sign in the crowd announcing it.
“I had no idea,” Emory Sullivan said. “I thought they were pranking me. I looked at the 470 on the sign and was like, ‘What does that mean? That’s not a record.’ I never look at my stats. I’m super happy and proud of myself because I never thought I’d get a region title either.”
The first two sets went smoothly for Scott, but GRC broke through in the third — scoring the first point and the last to take it 25-22, marking the Lady Cardinals’ first-ever set win over the Lady Eagles.
The Lady Cardinals looked finished in the fourth but mounted a late push before Scott closed it out. Up 24-20, the Lady Eagles saw GRC tie it at 24 before finishing with the final two points to secure the championship.
“When they won the third set, we came into our huddle and said, ‘Let’s go, we got this,’” Minor said. “We had the first two sets, we knew we had it in us, but we all came together and talked about what happened and what we needed to fix moving forward.”
The last time Scott won back-to-back region titles was 2016–17, part of a stretch of four straight from 2014–17.
Scott (29-11) will open the KHSAA state tournament on Nov. 3 against the 11th Region champion, Lexington Catholic. If the Lady Eagles advance, they’ll return to Winchester for the quarterfinals on Nov. 7. The semifinals and championship match are scheduled for Nov. 8.
Scott advanced to the state semifinals last season before falling to Mercy.
