By ALEC ETHEREDGE | Sports Editor

The Oak Mountain Eagles were able to make easy work of a tri-match featuring Northside and Northridge High schools on Tuesday, Sept. 25, on the road.

While they were tested in the second match against Northridge, the Eagles looked like the better of the three teams the majority of the night, and having a classification advantage on Northridge and a three-classification advantage on Northside certainly didn’t hurt.

In the first match of the night against Northside, Oak Mountain came out with a purpose and looked strong from the start of the first set to the end of the second set to pull of the sweep.

The first set saw the Eagles take the early advantage, and while Northside pushed back slightly throughout, Oak Mountain was just too much and pulled away for a 25-14 opening-set victory.

That first set actually ended up being the closer of the two, as the Eagles let that fuel their momentum into a dominant second set that they were able to close out with a final score of 25-10 for the 15-point victory to claim the opening-match sweep.

While Oak Mountain was able to make easy work of Northside, the matchup with Northridge proved to be a much more difficult task going the maximum three sets.

The reason for that test was a difficult first set that could have been a devastating blow to the Eagles’ morale after Northridge was able to pull off a tightly contested 26-24 victory.

With the score tied 24-24 and one of the teams having to win by two points, Northridge reeled off the next two points in a row to claim the first-set win, which put Oak Mountain behind the eight ball.

Now forced to win the second set to stay alive in the match and avoid the sweep, the Eagles responded in a big way.

In another tightly contested set throughout with both teams making separate runs, Oak mountain was able to make some big plays late in the set to pull off a seven-point, 25-18, win to stay alive in the match.

Now knotted at 1-1 in the match, the third set to 15 points determined who would win the match.

While both teams reached double-digit points in the set, it was Oak Mountain again who was able to pull away late for a 15-10 win to claim its second victory of the night and complete the tri-match with a 2-0 record.