Lady Flyers Drop Squeaker to J and W - Post Season Play Begins This Weekend
The Sandhills volleyball team rallied from a two-set deficit to visiting Johnson and Wales in Tuesday evening's final regular season match before falling in the tie-breaker.
With the 23-25, 23-25, 25-17, 25-22 and 11-15 loss, the Lady Flyers completed their regular season schedule with a record of 25-5. The Wildcats from Charlotte defeated the Flyers for the second time and improved to 13-11.
Next for Coach Alicia Riggan's squad is the Region X tournament to be held on Friday and Saturday at Central Carolina CC in Sanford. As regular season champions, the Flyers will receive a bye into the first semi-final match at 9 a.m. on Saturday. They will play the winner of Friday's match between No. 4 seeded Rockingham and No. 5 Vance-Granville.
No. 2 seeded Patrick Henry gets a bye into the 11 a.m. semi-final against either No. 3 Davidson or No. 6 Central Carolina. The championship match at 1 p.m. earns the winner a berth in the District H tournament on October 28.
In spite of producing almost as many attack errors as kills (16 errors, 21 kills), the Flyers only lost each of the first two sets by two points. About midway through the third, back-to-back strong finishes at the net by Paige Garner put them in front 11-10. Later, three service aces in a row by Rachael Mashburn made it 23-16. The final two points were provided by a slam from Chelsea Green and a tip by Brooke Sayers.
Kills by Green and Morgan McCarthy put the Flyers in front for good at 18-16 in the close fourth set that evened the match at 2-2. Trailing 13-9 in the tie-breaker, kills by Green and Garner led to a Wildcat time out before the visitors won the next two points and the match.
The loss was the first at home this season after 11 wins.
"I don't know if we ran out of gas in the tie-breaker," Riggan said. "It just didn't feel like we were in sync.
"Our hitting errors killed us tonight. It's time for us to step up in a fast-paced match like this one which is what we are going to see at the next level after our conference tournament. It was disappointing to not see us rise to that challenge especially on our home court."
The Flyers were led in kills by Garner with 15, and Green and Sayers with 13 each. Setter Abby Wallace recorded a season-high 48 assists to go with 17 digs. Libero Erica Groff led the way in digs with 25. Also in double figures in that category were Mashburn with 13, Sayers with 11 and Green with 10. Mashburn was also credited with six service aces.
Roderick Brower, the chief information officer at Sandhills, sang the National Anthem.
C. Bergmann