Hayesville – In the Lady Bulldogs volleyball team’s previous two games before facing Hayesville on Sept. 26, head coach Nikol Edwards was disappointed in her team’s fight. While Cherokee and Franklin are two of the best teams in western North Carolina, but Edwards thought her team went down way too easily.
A similar opportunity presented itself against the Lady Jackets. After splitting the first two sets, the Lady Bulldogs struggled with serve receive in the third set as Hayesville had eight aces. However, Murphy rallied to win a tight fourth set, then scored the first nine points in the fifth set to decisively close out a win in Clay County (23-25, 25-23, 18-25, 25-21,15-3).
“We’ve had some tough games here a little bit, and acted like we’ve laid down lately and not played with a whole lot of momentum,” Edwards said. “And that’s the team that I’ve been waiting on.”
The Lady Bulldogs (9-5 overall, 3-2 Smoky Mountain Conference) had to battle for the win, and to stop the variety of Hayesville attacks. While Murphy has seen stronger hitters this year, the Lady Jackets (6-9, 2-3) setted to all three spots in the front row and did a good job finding holes in the Lady Bulldogs’ defense. But Murphy continued to hustle, making sure too many points didn’t come easy.
“Defensively, I think we improved a lot,” Edwards said. “It was that determination factor, the ball can’t hit the floor.”
After the Lady Bulldogs answered a 6-2 Hayesville start in the first set with four straight points of their own, neither team led by more than three points the rest of the set. Back-to-back kills by Maddison Seabolt put Murphy in front 23-22, but after a Lady Jackets timeout Madison Moore had a kill and an ace, then a Seabolt attack error gave Hayesville the first set.
The Lady Bulldogs jumped out to a 13-8 lead to start the second set, only to let the Lady Jackets back in it with three straight errors to tie the set at 15. It was back-and-forth again after that, and an ace by Addyson Dickey gave Murphy the 25-23 set win to tie the match.
After some struggles at the service line in the first two sets, Hayesville was lights out in the third set. Four aces from Brittany Jack helped the Lady Jackets jump out to a 7-0 lead, giving them the cushion they needed to hold off any potential Murphy runs. Two more aces from Moore extended the lead to 20-12, as Hayesville looked to assert itself and close out the match in four sets.
Down 19-18 in the fourth set, Murphy thought it had tied it after a Carsyn Lovingood kill down the line that only happened because the referees missed a mistake earlier in the point. The officials recognized that after the play ended and gave the point to Hayesville. The Lady Bulldogs answered by scoring 22 of the final 26 points across the fourth and fifth sets.
Seabolt had four kills in the latter stages of the fourth set, then four more in the fifth set that along with two aces from Cayla Geer helped Murphy jump out to a 9-0 lead in the winner-take-all set. After a kill by Lailee Holloway ended the match, the celebration from the Lady Bulldogs’ locker room could be heard from the stands of the Hayesville gym.
For a team that has struggled to find its footing this year, the grit and determination against Hayesville is something the Lady Bulldogs will need for the second half of conference play.
“How we played like that is how we have to continue to play and grow on that every single time,” Edwards said.
Murphy did their best to carry that momentum at Robbinsville (12-4, 4-2) two days later, but couldn’t quite get to the finish line in a five-set loss (25-18, 19-25, 23-25, 25-21, 15-8). Still, it was an improvement over when the two teams met back on Aug. 29, when the Lady Bulldogs looked overwhelmed in a four set loss.
Murphy looked to continue taking steps in the right direction with a trip to Swain County (14-4, 3-3) after press time Tuesday before hosting Andrews (6-9, 0-6) on Thursday.