Lady Bulldogs come home, down both in-county foes

  • Murphy’s Grace Nelson plays the ball at the net while Hiwassee Dam’s Chloe Roe and Dezeray Adams try to block during a match Sept. 17.
    Murphy’s Grace Nelson plays the ball at the net while Hiwassee Dam’s Chloe Roe and Dezeray Adams try to block during a match Sept. 17.

        Murphy – As the old saying goes, “There’s no place like home.”
        And for the Murphy Lady Bulldogs, who recently had five straight games on the road, that phrase rang true last week as they returned to the Dog Pound.
        After losing their second match of the season on the road at Franklin, the Lady Dogs returned home and downed the Hiwassee Dam Lady Eagles in straight sets before hitting the road again to defeat the Lady Wildcats in straight sets in Andrews.
        A large part of the Lady Dogs’ recent success has come from the team’s hitting, which has heated up as of late.
        “We haven’t been hitting the way we’re capable of hitting lately,” Murphy head coach Nikol Edwards said after the Lady Dogs’ win against Hiwassee Dam.
        “And I told them after the game that I don’t know if its just us being back at home and not having to sit on a bus for two or more hours but we’ve got to get back to us and do what we do. So we did, we hit the ball.”
        Murphy’s win against Hiwassee Dam was not without a price however, as junior Grace Nelson went down after rolling her ankle in the second set of the match.
        “I told them at the start of the third game, you have to work through adversity, it’s part of life,” Edwards said. “Work through it, it always makes you stronger.”
        Two days later, without Nelson, Murphy took down Andrews in three sets to improve to 10-2 on the season, rallying around the injury to the junior.
        “We’re all coming together and getting around the girls who are hurt,” senior Hailey Bowman said after Murphy’s win against Andrews. “Surrounding them with love and support, just taking it day by day.”
        Bowman, one of four seniors on the Lady Dogs’ roster, has emerged as one of the team’s leaders this season, both on the floor and in the locker room and leads Murphy in kills (123), digs (153) and aces (5).
        “We have great group of girls this season,” Bowman said. “I think that if we just keep it rolling, we can go pretty far. But we’re working hard in the gym every day.”
        The Lady Dogs hosted the Cherokee Lady Braves Tuesday night after the Cherokee Scout’s press time.