Murphy volleyball on to round 3 after handling Alleghany

Murphy – Playing in Murphy High School’s gymnasium hasn’t been easy for opponents in recent years. It’s one thing to just be playing a program that has won six straight Big Smoky Mountain Conference championships, but the Lady Bulldogs love to crank the heat in their gym, only adding to the home-court advantage.
   

They entered Tuesday’s second round of the N.C. High School Athletic Association 1A playoffs on a 36-match home-winning streak. It’s now 37 after a four-set win over Alleghany (25-18, 25-19, 17-25, 25-14).

“It’s a great feeling to be at home,” head coach Jordan Lovingood said, “From point one we really picked up the pace. We were putting the ball down good tonight.”

The two teams were the top two traditional public schools in the 1A West RPI rankings, and Alleghany ended the season ranked ahead of the Lady Bulldogs. Both teams tied for their respective regular season conference championships, but unlike No. 6 seed Murphy (23-3 overall), the Lady Trojans (19-5) did not win their conference tournament, so they were seeded at No. 11 – below other conference champions.

Alleghany presented a challenge with two middle hitters more than 5-feet, 10-inches tall, but Lady Bulldogs' middle hitter Maddison Seabolt was up to the task. She finished with a game-high 17 kills, more than the Lady Trojans' two middles combined (11).

“If the ball’s being set to Maddison, there’s a good chance it’s going on the ground,” Lovingood said.

Murphy took a 7-5 lead on a 3-0 run in the first set and didn’t trail again. The Lady Bulldogs were more consistently able to feed their hitters than Alleghany, who struggled to get in system. Good serves from Addie Johnson and Riley Dockery helped Murphy get out to a 7-1 lead in the second set, but the Lady Trojans rallied to tie the set at 13.

The Lady Bulldogs would respond with a 6-0 run thanks to three Alleghany errors and three kills from Seabolt, giving them breathing room to finish off the second set. Once again, the Lady Trojans never got into a groove thanks to Murphy’s hitters variety of attacks.

The Lady Trojans showed some fight in the third set to keep their season alive, getting six kills from middle hitter Zoey Bourne in the set and six service aces. They jumped out to a 9-4 lead and were never seriously threatened.

Balls continued to bounce Alleghany’s way early in the fourth set, with an ace from Ally Glenn just getting over the net and an attack from Brooke Constantino just bounced off a Lady Bulldogs defender. But after a 5-0 Murphy run to give the Lady Bulldogs a 10-7 lead, they wore Alleghany down and took advantage of the Lady Trojans' mistakes to move on to the third round.

Murphy's playoff journey continues with a 262-mile trek to No. 3 seed Bishop McGuinness (22-5) in Kernersville at 5 p.m. Thursday. The two teams met back in the Elite Eight during the 2020-21 season, with the Lady Villains prevailing in five sets.

“Our girls are used to traveling,” Lovingood said. “This is not the first year we’ve done it. We know that getting on the bus, we’ve got to make sure we’re still road warriors.”