THOMASVILLE — Thomas County Central volleyball continued its recent hot streak on Tuesday night, defeating visiting Tift County 3-0 at the Bishop Hall Charter School gymnasium.

The win avenged a season-opening loss to the Blue Devils on August 8.

“We knew that we had to start strong, fight strong and finish strong,” Central volleyball coach Hannah Shierling said. “That’s what we did throughout all three games.”

The Yellow Jackets won the first game of the best-of-five match handily, starting with a 7-3 lead and going on a long run fueled by some Tift mistakes to bring the score to 20-7. The Blue Devils were able to rebound a little bit but Central hung on for the 25-14 win.

The second game was much closer, with the score tied at 7-7 and 8-8 to begin play. The Yellow Jackets went on a 4-0 run to take a slim 12-8 advantage. Central stayed just ahead of Tift with a 22-20 lead as it approached the 25-point threshold, and was ultimately able to hold off the threatening Blue Devils for the 25-21 win, and took the commanding 2-0 lead headed into the third set.

“The first couple of games that we’ve played, we were not finishing,” Shierling said. “We would get up and we would end up losing it. We’ve been working the last three weeks to get our mindset to finish.”

Central secured the win in the third game, starting with a 7-1 run and eventually completing the 3-0 sweep a 25-13 victory.

“I thought we did really well,” Hayley Hoffs said. “We lost to them last time. I was not really expecting to play as good as we did but we came out and won.”

Central will travel to play Lowndes on Thursday.