Andrews – The Andrews varsity volleyball team hit the road last week and split their games. They beat Highlands and lost to Hayesville in their week of road games.
They kicked off their week with a 3-1 win against Highlands (4-10) on Sept. 17. The Lady Wildcats (5-7) got revenge as Highlands was the team they lost to in their first game of the season.
The Lady Highlanders came out and won the first set 25-18, but their momentum would be quickly killed as the Lady Wildcats went on to win the next three sets to take the match.
Andrews won the second set 25-17 to level the match. Andrews then won the third set 25-13 to be one set away from winning the match.
The fourth set was the closest set of the match, which Andrews won 25-22 to win the match 3-1.
Senior Kylie Donaldson led the team with five aces against Highlands. She also had 11 kills, one assist and 20 digs. Freshman Juliet Holloway made her presence at the net known with 19 kills, as well as one ace, three blocks and 10 digs.
Kaiya Ellis had 36 assists, five digs, two aces and one kill. Beth Shook had four aces, 10 kills, two blocks and 17 digs. Chanteah Rattler had two aces, two kills, two assists and nine digs.
Mady Queen had two aces, three kills and nine digs. Allie Gibson had 10 digs and Lauren White had four digs. Caitlynn Thompson had one block assist.
Later in the week, Andrews was on the road again as they took on the Lady Yellow Jackets (9-4) on Thursday.
The match started close and would stay that way throughout the first set. Hayesville maintained a slim lead throughout the set, but pulled away late to win the set 25-20.
In the second set, the Lady Jackets got an early lead and kept it that way en route to winning the set 25-12.
The Lady Wildcats were not done yet as they put up a fight in the third set. Hayesville took an early lead, but Andrews fought back to take the lead. They maintained the lead until very late in the set.
Andrews was on the brink of winning the set, but Hayesville came out of a late timeout and scored four straight points, then took a 24-23 lead. Andrews tied it at 24 to extend the set. They tied again at 25 each, then Hayesville scored two straight to win the third set and the match.
After Thursday’s match, Lady Wildcats head coach Shanna Mustin said, “For the most part we came out pretty strong, especially in the first set. Like I’ve told the team all week, ‘Hayesville is a tough gym to play in,’ so we really focused a lot on bringing our own energy and bringing our own intensity to the game no matter what the atmosphere in the gym was and for the most part we did that.
“We had great hustle, defense, we made good passes on serve receives … Obviously, they’re really tall, so we worked a lot on shots that would go around then block and we found the floor quite a bit,” she added.
Mustin said senior Kylie Donaldson stood out against Hayesville for her strong hits. She added that it was a team effort, saying everyone hustled and played smart.
Against Hayesville, Ellis had 20 assists, one kill and 11 digs. Donaldson had 10 kills, one ace and seven digs. Shook had six kills, three blocks and four digs.
Holloway had six kills, two blocks and three digs. Gibson had seven digs and one kill, and Queen had five kills and one assist. Rattler had one ace and four assists and Thompson had one dig.
The Lady Wildcats will host Cherokee in their next match this Thursday at 6 p.m. They will then hit the road and take on Robbinsville on Tuesday at 6 p.m.
There are only two weeks remaining in the regular season. Following the Robbinsville match, the Lady Wildcats will play three more regular season match against Murphy on Oct. 3 and Hayesville on Oct. 8 at home, then Swain County on Oct. 10 on the road.