Andrews – Once again on Sept. 28, Andrews volleyball had gotten off to a slow start.
Highlands dominated the first two sets, but the Lady Wildcats showed signs of life in the third set. Highlanders junior India Clark put an end to that, as her 14th kill of the match landed on the back left side of the court, giving Highlands a straight-set victory 25-10, 25-11, 27-25.
“Obviously we can play good because we did game three,” Lady Wildcats head coach Shanna Mustin said. “So it’s just a matter of that mentality from the very first point.”
Mustin has tried to get her team out of their first funk this year. Today it was running some sprints before warmups. It didn’t seem to help, though Andrews (2-4 overall) was also dealing with some lineup changes. Senior outside hitter Mackenzie Stalcup was unable to play, and sophomore Tailor Jenkins stepped in to fill her spot. Jenkins provided a big boost at the service line, recording five aces. The Lady Wildcats weren’t able to run as much in the outside, instead relying on attacks to middle hitter Rylie McDonald, who got better as the match went on.
“She did amazing serving tonight,” Mustin said of Jenkins. “And Rylie really had to step up too, she had a much better game because we knew we had to count on her a little bit more.”
It took two sets for Andrews to find that groove. On top of its usual slow start, the Lady Wildcats looked rusty after not playing a match in two weeks. Communication wasn’t where it usually is, and the team struggled in serve-receive, as Highlands (6-7) had 12 of its 16 service aces in the first two sets.
When the Highlanders weren’t taking advantage of Andrews errors, and getting into an offense, they found little resistance at the net. That led to easy set wins for Highlands, who didn’t trail in the first two sets.
“Obviously we had a hard time blocking outside,” Mustin said. “If they couldn’t hit it hard at them, they were just killing us from the outside. It was just hard for us to get out of that.”
Andrews hung tough in the third set, finding a way back in whenever it looked like the Highlanders were ready to pull away. Trailing 14-10 and 18-14, the Lady Wildcats eventually rallied to tie the set at 19.
Highlands scored four straight points, but Andrews rallied back to five straight points and led 25-24. Unfortunately for the Lady Wildcats, Clark stepped up, sandwiching two kills around an attack error to win the match.
“It didn’t matter where the set was,” Mustin said of Clark. “She could hit(down the) line or she could hit cross (court) and we could not get a read on her.”
Andrews beat Hayesville, 3-1, on Sept. 30 for their first win over the Lady Jackets since 2012 and swept Nantahala the next day. As of press time, Andrews was 4-4 overall and 2-3 in the Big Smoky Mountain Conference. The Lady Wildcats travelled to Robbinsville on Monday and hosted Swain County on Tuesday, with results from both matches not available until after this week’s edition of the Cherokee Scout went to press. The Lady Wildcats travel to Cherokee on Thursday.