Monroe – As teams advance further in the postseason, they need to continue to be on their game. One off night, and the season is over.
Murphy volleyball had done that in its first four matches during the N.C. High School Athletic Association 1A playoffs. The Lady Bulldogs continued to be a strong hitting team, and the defense that had been a weak point earlier in the season had come a long way.
In the 1A West Regional Final at Union Academy on Nov. 2, Murphy couldn’t keep the trend going, falling to the Cardinals in four sets (21-25, 17-25, 25-18, 17-25). The Lady Bulldogs finished the season 23-3 overall, and advanced to the 1A West Regional Final for the first time since 2011.
“You cannot take away from what kind of team Union Academy is,” Murphy head coach Jordan Lovingood said.
“They were ready to go tonight. Through games one or two, I don’t think we played our best. As a result we had a huge hole we couldn’t dig out of and couldn’t get the job done.”
Both teams get going when they’re hitting the ball well, and Union Academy was able to do that more
consistently.
Cardinals hitters Anna Ungerer and Gabriela Gama were able to have success from the outside, and the Lady Bulldogs rarely had an answer for middle hitter Ryleigh Clayborn’s hits off quick sets. Lovingood tweaked Murphy’s back-row rotations throughout the match to try to find an answer, but it wasn’t enough.
“We knew coming that their strong points were going to be blocking and hitting,” Lovingood said, “All through playoffs we’d gotten a lot more touches on the block, and as a result of that not happening our defense had to play a lot harder. It’s hard to get a ball hit that hard up.”
Besides struggling on defense, there were also uncharacteristic communication errors that gave the Cardinals free points. That led to an uphill battle in the first two sets, where Murphy only led once at 2-1 in the second set. In the first set, Murphy battled back from a 20-15 hole to tie the set before Union Academy made the decisive run.
In the second set, the Cardinals led 8-3 before Murphy scored five straight points to pull even. But the Lady Bulldogs could never get over the hump after that, failing to score more than two straight points the rest of the set.
Murphy looked like the team it had been throughout the playoffs in the third set, getting strong performances from both Torin Rogers and Olivia Payne to keep its season going. That didn’t carry over to the fourth set.
Union Academy jumped out to a 10-4 lead, and Murphy would never get any closer. Besides the three hitters who had been a problem most of the night, setter Lauren Munday started finding holes in the Lady Bulldogs’ defense after contributing to the Cardinals block, with three kills in the last set.
Despite the disappointing ending, Murphy put together another excellent season. In Lovingood’s first year as head coach, the Lady Bulldogs won the Smoky Mountain Conference championship for the fifth straight year and had a second straight undefeated regular season in conference play.
Murphy loses six seniors – notably Rogers, libero Cailey Dockery and setter Amber Martin – but will return a good group of hitters, led by Payne. The Lady Bulldogs junior varsity team also won the Smoky Mountain Conference tournament.
“I didn’t dread one day coming in,” Lovingood said. “Even after a loss, there’s no moment where I dreaded coming in to be a part of them. As a result, it’s hard to explain (what this year meant) because of what a special group we had this year.”