Murphy – As Murphy volleyball tried to close out Cherokee with a share of the Big Smoky Mountain Conference regular season championship on the line Thursday, head coach Jordan Lovingood told her team to stay composed.
Of course, the celebration in the locker room after Julia Dockery’s game-winning kill bounced off the Cherokee block was the exact opposite. You could hear screaming from inside the gym, and water bottles were emptied on the players and coaches after the Lady Bulldogs clinched a share of the regular-season crown with a four-set win (22-25, 25-21, 25-12, 25-22).
“Just to be able to celebrate with them makes it all worth it,” Lovingood said. “I know that practice can just get redundant. But to go in that locker room and celebrate at the end, that’s what we all live for.”
This is Murphy’s sixth-straight regular-season title, though the road to it was much different than in previous years. Murphy’s (19-3 overall, 8-2 conference) two conference losses were as many as it had in the previous five years combined.
The Lady Bulldogs graduated six seniors from last year’s 1A Western regional runner-up, which meant some growing pains early as returning players adjusted to new roles and junior varsity players got used to the varsity level.
After starting conference play with a four-set win at Hayesville, Murphy fell to Robbinsville in four sets, then lost at Swain County in five sets in a match where it had a 14-8 fifth set lead in the first to 15 tiebreaker. That meant the Lady Bulldogs needed to win out and get help just to have a shot at the conference title.
“This year it just seems to be a grind because everybody is so evenly matched and everybody is on the same playing field,” senior Liv Payne said. “Every single match whether it would be Cherokee, Robbinsville or Hayesville, it’s a grind to win.”
Since then, though, Murphy hasn’t lost. They got a big help when Cherokee handed Robbinsville its first conference loss on Sept. 29, then the Lady Bulldogs forced a three-way tie with the Lady Knights and Cherokee by beating Robbinsville on Oct. 4.
In Thursday’s match, a win for either Murphy or the Lady Braves would give either team a share of the conference title with the Lady Knights. Murphy led 21-17 in the first set before running into a tough stretch at the service line, then rallied for a tough second set win before Payne dominated the third set in a runaway Lady Bulldogs win.
After Cherokee jumped out to an 18-14 lead in the fourth set, Payne took over again.
“Every time in the air I’d see exactly what spot was open,” she said.
With Murphy and Robbinsville tying for the regular-season title, the conference tournament will be used to determine who will be the conference champion for the N.C. High School Athletic Association 1A state playoffs. Murphy was given the top seed in the conference tournament by virtue of a coin flip, and played Swain County after the Cherokee Scout’s press time Tuesday.
Teams that win their conference or
finish top three or above .500 in a split 1A/2A conference are seeded before other teams. Both the Lady Bulldogs and Lady Knights will likely host first-round playoff games no matter what happens in the conference tournament, but being seeded with other conference champions means a second-round home playoff game if they advance.