Bryson City-There was too much on the line for Murphy volleyball to just quit after dropping the first two sets against Robbinsville in the Big Smoky Mountain Conference Tournament Championship.
Since the two teams tied for the regular season championship, meant this match decided who would be the outright champion and get the better seed for the state playoffs. So the Lady Bulldogs didn’t quit. They rebounded to win the third set. Then the fourth set. The tiebreaking fifth set, they won convincingly, pulling off the reverse sweep of the Lady Knights (20-25, 14-25, 25-19, 25-21, 15-8).
“I’m just so proud of them,” head coach Jordan Lovingood said. “You get beat the first two games, it’s so easy to give up. We just told them they’re more than capable, they have every tool in the tool box. We just have to go out and take of care business.”
Murphy entered the match coming off a convincing semifinal win the night before over No. 5 seed Swain County (25-8, 25-16, 25-18), while Robbinsville had to dig a little deeper in a four-set win over No. 3 seed Cherokee (25-14, 12-25, 25-23, 25-23). However, the Lady Knights came out with more energy.
Kills by Kensley Phillips, Claire Barlow and Delaney Brooms gave Robbinsville a 4-1 lead in the first set, and the Lady Knights didn’t trail again. The second set was a similar story, as Robbinsville took a 4-3 lead on a Brooms’ kill and rolled. The Lady Bulldogs (21-3 overall) had little answer for the hitting of Brooms, Barlow, Phillips and Aubrie Wachacha in the first two sets, struggling as a team in the first set before looking discombobulated in the second.
Starting in the third set, Murphy went back to its bread and butter. Have setter Addie Johnson feed hitters Liv Payne and Maddison Seabolt, and see if the other team can stop it. The Lady Bulldogs started to get better touches on Robbinsville (16-8) attacks as well, with Seabolt having three solo blocks herself in the third set alone. After struggling at times with her attacks in the first two sets, Seabolt was arguably the best hitter on the floor in the last three.
“Once you make her mad she’s dangerous,” Lovingood said of Seabolt. “And I think that was evident tonight. A couple things didn’t go her way and she takes matters into her own hands and just slams the ball.”
A few well placed kills by Calista Rumfelt kept Murphy afloat early in the third set, before Payne and Seabolt started putting the ball down late to keep the match alive. The two teams traded points for nearly half the fourth set before a 5-0 run with Maddie Parker at the service line put the Lady Bulldogs in front 18-14. The Lady Knights continued to have no answer for Payne and Seabolt, who finished with 10 and five kills in the set.
In the fifth, Murphy took an 8-3 lead and didn’t look back. The Lady Bulldogs had four blocks in the final set alone, with Rumfelt teaming up with Seabolt for one, Seabolt getting two herself and Julia Dockery stuffing one attack. Seabolt’s block in the middle on Clare Barlow ended the match, and she excitedly slid to the floor before rising to her knees and welcoming the mob of teammates.
The score was 14-8 before her block, the same score the Lady Bulldogs led by in a five set match at Swain County earlier this year before giving it away. At that time, Murphy had a long road ahead to be conference champion. But in the 15-match winning streak since, the Lady Bulldogs have been much-improved on defense, grown more cohesive and acquired some mental toughness needed to be successful in volleyball.
Now, they’ll look to keep that going in the North Carolina HS Athletic Association 1A playoffs, where they’ll be the No. 6 seed and host No. 27 seed Cherryville (13-9) on Saturday.
“We talked about how conference is huge, conference tournament is huge,” Lovingood said. “But there’s nothing greater than your playoff run. We put ourselves in a great position to be successful. Now we just have to go finish.”