Cherokee – At times this year, Murphy volleyball has had trouble putting teams away. It looked that way early against Cherokee on Sept. 20, as the Lady Bulldogs led the Lady Braves 23-19 in the first set before Cherokee won the last six points to take the set.
Murphy went up 16-6 in the second set, only for the Lady Braves to tie the set at 17. But the Lady Bulldogs responded, rallying to take the second set, along with the third and fourth sets, to win the match (23-25, 25-22, 25-22, 25-20).
“Whenever things don’t go your way, you can’t be that mentally unstable team and not overcome that,” Murphy head coach Jordan Lovingood said. “That’s what we’ve talked about a lot lately. As the season’s gone on, we’ve definitely gotten mentally stronger.”
The match was a battle of styles. The Lady Bulldogs (9-3 overall, 3-2 Big Smoky Mountain Conference) love to attack, though at times have struggled to get the passing needed to go to work on offense. After being the conference doormat for years, Cherokee (8-6, 3-2) has made leaps and bounds the past two seasons as a gritty team who plays great defense to make up for their lack of size.
Murphy’s hitting eventually made the difference. With senior outside hitter Riley Dockery out with an ankle injury, Liv Payne and Maddison Seabolt took on a bigger load, finishing with 20 and 19 kills respectively.
“I told them tonight just swing away and they weren’t going to touch it,” Lovingood said. “And they didn’t.”
Murphy got both Payne and Seabolt going in the first set, leading 18-12, 22-17 and 23-19 before the Lady Braves Alexis Davis went to the service line. As Cherokee’s best server, she had a few aces, and a few Murphy errors gave the set to the Lady Braves.
The Lady Bulldogs would jump out to an even bigger lead in the second set at 16-6 before Cherokee answered with an 11-1 run to tie. Murphy would score four straight points, but the Lady Braves continued to fight until a kill from Seabolt put away the second set.
“Once you get one under belt, that’s just a huge game-changer,” Lovingood said.
Unlike the first two sets, Cherokee had the better run of play early in set three and four. The Lady Braves led 6-2 in the third set, and the Lady Bulldogs slowly worked back into it before a 7-0 run with Julia Dockery at the service line gave them a 16-12 lead.
The teams traded runs after that, before Murphy scored the last three points of the set to win it, 25-22. Payne started the mini-run with a kill, then had an ace and a solo block from Cali Rumfelt gave the Lady Bulldogs a 2-1 lead in the match.
Cherokee then led 9-5 in the fourth set before a 5-0 Murphy run, and the Lady Bulldogs took the lead for good at 14-11 after back-to-back kills by Payne and Seabolt. The lead grew to 22-16, and the Lady Braves scored four in a row with Davis at the service line before a Cherokee error. The Lady Braves would hit two more attacks high to give Murphy the match.
It hasn’t been the easiest start to the year for the Lady Bulldogs, with several players battling minor injuries while having a mostly new lineup that’s still adjusting to the varsity level. But Murphy got a big confidence boost after a five-set win over Franklin last week, avenging a sweep in Macon County in August.
That, along with five of their last seven games at home with the two road trips only being to Andrews and Hiwassee Dam, could lead to better results down the stretch.
“Coming off the win against Franklin, that kind of gave us the juice that we needed,” Lovingood said. “That was a huge win for us. And we knew that Cherokee was going to be scrappy, they’re great with six players on the floor. We just knew we were going to have to do what we do best, and that’s hitting to win the game.”