The Pleasant Home Lady Eagles put up a strong fight, but fell 3-1 to Decatur Heritage on Wednesday in the opening round of the Class 1A state volleyball tournament in Birmingham.

“We just didn’t bring our ‘A’ game today,” Pleasant Home head coach Jerry Davis said. “I felt pretty good about this game coming in, but they played sound and we made a lot of mistakes. It was more about how we played than what they did, though.”

In the opening match, the Lady Eagles grabbed an early 5-2 lead, but Decatur Heritage used a 7-0 run to pull out to a to jump ahead 9-5.

Pleasant Home began to rally back and got the score to 21-20, but a mystery point showed up on the board with no explanation to give Decatur Heritage a questionable 25-21 victory.

Decatur Heritage stormed out front 8-0 in the second set, but the Lady Eagles rallied back to tie the game 15-15.

Decatur Heritage was able to hold off the Lady Eagles for a 25-23 victory.

With their backs against the wall, Pleasant Home came out of the gate with a blistering pace in the third set.

The Lady Eagles jumped out front 7-1 and then held off Decatur Heritage for a 25-16 win.

In the third set, the lead went back-and-forth until Decatur Heritage went up 6-5.

The Lady Eagles continued to fight back into the contest, but Decatur Heritage came away with a 25-19 win to eliminate the Lady Eagles from the playoffs.

“Our girls have had a great year and no one can take that away from them,” Davis said. “At the beginning of the year, I never would have thought that we would have won the region. I knew we had a chance to get to state, but I wasn’t sure we were capable of winning the region. Best part about this team is that most of them will be back next year, and we have a good chance of making it right back here to Birmingham.”