The Grind, presented by Bank of Clarendon: Lee Central's Bradley leads the charge during historic volleyball season and beyond

The Lee Central volleyball team is making history this season.

Last week, they claimed their first region title in program history with a win over Andrews. Entering Tuesday's game with Kingstree, they had a chance to complete a perfect run through region play. With the playoffs right around the corner, they have their eyes set on even more accolades.

Right in the middle of that success is Annastasia Bradley.

Anna is the setter of the team, a position that can often be seen as the unsung hero. She rarely gets to leap up and smash down thunderous kills. She's typically the player making the pass to set up highlight plays for her teammates. While her stats won't always jump off the page, she's the heart and soul of this momentous run with the Lady Stallions.

"Annastasia is the glue that holds everyone together," head volleyball coach Jalisa Williams said. "If she's on and being vocal and being that leader on the court, then everyone is fine. She kinda holds everyone accountable so they're doing what needs to be done. She's all over the court. She's just the glue."

And it's not just in volleyball.

Anna is a three-sport athlete for Lee Central, and she's a leader in each one. She led the Lady Stallions to the playoffs in volleyball, basketball and softball last season, and she plans to do the same thing as she makes her final run at LCHS.

Oh, and she's second in her class academically, too. She really does it all.

FAMILY INFLUENCE

Anna's drive to succeed goes all the way back to childhood. Anna grew up playing sports with her older brother, Derrick. The two were and continue to be two peas in a pod.

"They are inseparable," said Patrice Holmes, who serves as the head girls basketball coach and assistant volleyball coach at Lee Central. "I have seen them supporting each other, no matter where the game is at, whether it's baseball, softball, volleyball, basketball, they always support each other. It was great for her to see what it's like to see him perform those duties on the floor."

The pair started by playing T-ball together. It didn't take Derrick long to see that his sister is as competitive as they come.

"I remember the ball kept coming to me, and it never came to her. She started getting mad," Derrick said. "She's really competitive when it comes to sports."

Derrick is a couple years older than Anna, and the younger Bradley always wanted to follow in her brother's footsteps.

"When we were younger, every time I went to the store and got shoes, she got the same exact shoes, the same snacks, everything," Derrick said. "We have a really close bond."

Anna always appreciated having an older brother who set a path for her. She had a trying start to varsity athletics after COVID-19 eliminated her freshman season in all three sports. But she came in as a sophomore and stepped right in as a leader because that's what her brother did.

"My family has a big place in how I am who I am today," Anna said. "My brother is my role model; whatever he does, I look up to him, and he was the captain of his team, and I just followed in his footsteps, and now I'm the captain of my team.

"He makes me better. We compete a lot. He tells me what I need to get better at. I tell him what he needs to get better at."

THE VOID OF 2020

The 2020-21 school year at Lee Central is still a touchy subject. The school was hit harder by the coronavirus pandemic than most, as the district elected to put a complete pause on athletics.

So Anna spent her freshman year working on her own, but going from B-team sports to varsity was going to be a difficult task, especially when it came to sports like basketball, which require physical battles directly with a competitor.

"It was definitely challenging. We were all out of shape," she admitted. "Volleyball wasn't as challenging as basketball or softball. Volleyball came kinda easy, but basketball, having to handle the ball, the speed was different from B-team. It was more aggressive."

While it was challenging to jump right to varsity, Anna was determined to be great.

"When I was able to get her on the team from middle school, I knew she was going to be a huge help on the court," Jalisa said. "She's the type of player where you can just tell her or show her how to do something, and she just immediately does it, or just tell her what she needs to fix, and she's going to constantly work at it until it's perfected."

Her leadership also immediately came through in every sport.

"That was something that was always ingrained in her," Patrice said of Anna's leadership ability. "Kudos to her parents for showing her how to be a leader. In basketball, she's gotten better at seeing the floor. She's always coming to ask questions, so we have a lot of one-on-one meetings with her just to get her perspective because, as a point guard, she's like a coach on the floor."

The Lady Stallions also had to rekindle their bonds after seeing very little of each other during the span of a year.

"The bond was shaky coming back from COVID because we hadn't seen each other, and it was kind of strange being back together after the pandemic, but in 10th grade and 11th grade, we started to bond," Anna said.

COMING BACK STRONGER

It took some time, but the Lady Stallions did more than bond. They started to get really, really good.

The Lee Central volleyball team went 13-4-1 last year, finishing second in Region VIII-2A. The basketball team won their region and finished 17-7 overall. The softball team made the playoffs and even won a game over Edisto in an extremely competitive district.

"We had to be coachable," Anna said. "Everybody got better separately, so we could contribute to the team as a whole. They worked on their spikes, we have some great hitters killing everything at the net, we have a great middle, and our libero Khiashia Phillips, she digs everything. I'm the setter, and we all work together."

The volleyball team has taken that success to a new level this year. They entered Tuesday unbeaten in region play and have only lost once this season, a defeat against 4A Ridge View in a tournament in August. Not only have they not lost a region game, but they also only dropped three total sets in their first seven region contests, two to Marion on Sept. 13 in their most dramatic win of the season and one to Andrews on Thursday when they clinched the region title.

Anna plays a key role in that success. As the setter, she's not always going to get the credit but, as Jalisa puts it, she's the one driving the car.

"I told them the other day that the setter is almost the most important position on the court because the setter is basically behind the wheel driving the team on the court," Jalisa said. "She's got to get that second hit, so a lot of times she's working extra hard to get that second hit because it doesn't always go to her directly. Without a good hit, you can't get those good kills that you need."

Being the setter also fits nicely in with her role as a leader. Anna has to know everyone on her team more than anyone else so she can set them up for success.

"It's all about communication," Anna said. "Sometimes it gets frustrating because you have to make the ball perfect for the hitter to get a good kill, but sometimes it comes kind of easy when you get into the groove of it and have a relationship with your hitters."

BALANCING ACT

While Anna is a spectacular athlete, she may be an even better student. She's currently rocking a 4.9 GPA and is second in her class. She takes pride in her commitment to her education.

"I feel like the grades come first. You have to hit the books first before you hit sports and the extracurricular activities."

Luckily, all of her coaches have preached the importance of academics from Day 1.

"We always tell them, 'You're a student first; it's a privilege to play sports,'" Patrice said. "We want to make sure we're doing the right things when we're in the classroom and when we're not in school that you're being a good citizen, an overall good person with high character."

Being a student-athlete can be hard enough to balance. It's even more difficult when you're playing three different sports. Anna doesn't take much time off, so sometimes the coaches have to step in and make sure she takes a breather.

"Because we all coach her in multiple sports, we have to tell her to take a break," Patrice said. "Just saying, 'You're not practicing today. We need you to rest your body so you can be prepared to play the next sport.' But knowing her, she's just a workaholic. She wants to be out there, she wants to get better. When you have a kid like that, it's hard to tell her 'no.'"

While it's hard to find the time to be skilled in three sports and stay on top of homework, Anna said the key is being good at prioritizing.

"You have to be focused and determined," she said. "You have to prioritize what's important to you and what's first. You've got to make sure you get the schoolwork done first before you get to practicing so you don't fall off academically."

While Anna would love to play sports in college, that's not her top priority. She wants to find a good four-year school where she can major in speech-language pathology.

"I would like to focus more on academics, but if the opportunity comes, I'm going to take it," she said.

Until the day comes to make that decision, Anna is going to keep putting in the work to make the 2023-24 school year at Lee Central one for the record books.

"This is a great start," Anna said. "I feel like basketball is going to follow on. After basketball, softball will get to winning, and we'll just carry throughout the whole entire season."