Robbinsville – The opportunity was right there for Murphy volleyball to force a fifth and final set Thursday. After dropping the first two sets to Robbinsville, the Lady Bulldogs won the third set 25-16, then were at set point 24-22 in the fourth set.
However, Murphy couldn’t make the plays it needed to, and the Lady Knights took advantage. Robbinsville scored three straight points to take a 25-24 lead. After the Lady Bulldogs tied the match at 26, two kills from Delaney Brooms put the match away for the Lady Knights. In a competitive match, Murphy came up short in a four-set loss (22-25, 21-25, 25-16, 28-26).
“Sometimes you just get the unlucky straw,” Lady Bulldogs head coach Jordan Lovingood said. “But whenever we’re up like that you got to push points, and the goal is to finish, and we did not get the job done tonight.”
Like the end to the fourth set, Murphy (6-2 overall, 1-1 Big Smoky Mountain Conference) couldn’t take advantage when they needed to in the first and second set. After scoring the first three points in the opening set, the Lady Bulldogs only scored three straight points once the rest of the set. That run gave Murphy a 16-15 lead, but Robbinsville (5-2, 2-0) took back the lead on kills from Kensley Phillips and Brooms and never trailed again in the set, winning 25-22.
The Lady Knights jumped out to a 19-12 lead in the second set, though the Lady Bulldogs battled back after that with five straight points to keep it close. But Robbinsville always had an answer, winning key rallies and getting the benefit of a questionable call to win the set 25-21 and take a 2-0 lead in the match.
“In crucial times, we just have to play smart,” Lovingood said. “And that’s not what happened tonight.”
Robbinsville was able to mix up its hitters better than Murphy in the first two sets, too, getting production from Phillips, Brooms and Claire Barlow. The Lady Bulldogs, meanwhile really relied on senior Liv Payne early, who has 12 kills while the rest of the team combined for nine.
“Liv’s just a great player,” Lovingood said. “She’s a great teammate, and the heart and soul that she pours into this, it’s evident on the court as much as it is off the court. You have to have a leader like that, we just have to have everyone else step up.”
The third set went much better, as Murphy jumped out to a 9-1 lead and never let Robbinsville get close. That energy carried over to the fourth set, as the Lady Bulldogs took an early 8-5 lead. But the Lady Knights cleaned up their erratic play from the third set, taking a 12-9 lead. It was back and forth from there until Robbinsville made the decisive run.
It was another learning experience for a somewhat young Murphy team, which senior Liv Payne said sometimes lets the previous points feed into the team’s energy.
“We tend to do pretty good when we’re doing better and ahead points,” Payne said. “Then as we come down and it gets pretty close, the energy kind of goes away.”
Going forward, Lovingood said defense will remain a priority. The Lady Bulldogs made some good plays, but not enough, especially with Brooms’ final two kills coming right down the line. Lovingood said that aspect has improved from earlier in the season, but still isn’t where it needs to be.
“Defensively. We have to get better, bottom line,” Lovingood said.