SOUTHERN PINES — The look on first-year head coach Mallory Wheeler’s face said it all.
After the Lady Scots lost a five-set heart breaker to Pinecrest, Wheeler looked like she had been through the ringer — and she had.
Her team made uncharacteristic mistakes and errors in the first two games of the match that forced them to play from behind — which isn’t a strength of this year’s team.
The Lady Scots looked as if they had never played together during the early goings of Thursday’s game. The girls were committing service errors, hitting errors, net violations and a lack of communication had them running into each other trying to hit the ball.
It was a mess and Wheeler had no explanation why her team struggled so hard.
“It was 14-16 unforced errors in the first game — that is just hitting errors, service errors and net violations,” she said. “I don’t know why they do that. I talked to them thoroughly about the importance of this game and wanting it. They played great at the end of the match, but they have to start out that way.”
The Lady Scots dropped the first game, 13-25 and the second game 22-25 before rallying to lead the entirety of game three to pull off a 25-22 win.
Game three saw Pinecrest make several mental errors, which left the door open for the Lady Scots to make a comeback. The Lady Scots got out to a 12-7 lead before Pinecrest was forced to call time out. Following the time out, the Lady Scots continued to dominate taking a seven-point lead, 20-13 deep into the match.
A block by sophomore Skyler York secured the 25-22 win for the Lady Scots to force a fourth game.
The fourth set was much more back-and-forth as the teams were tied 14 different times throughout the match. The crowd intensity in the gym hit fever pitch as Pinecrest had match point 22-24 when Wheeler called time out.
After the time out, Pinecrest was called for a lift to make it 23-24 and give the Lady Scots back the ball. Senior Kandon Luquer slammed a kill into the middle of the Lady Patriots defense to tie the match at 24. Fellow senior Ashley McGugan followed suit with a kill of her own to give the Lady Scots a 25-24 lead.
Pinecrest regained the lead with back-to-back tip ins to extend the match to 25-26. In high school volleyball, a team has to win by two points so the match was extended past the traditional 25-point threshold. A Pinecrest serve into the net and a rotation error gave the Lady Scots back the lead, 27-26. The Lady Scots then finished the game with a kill to force a fifth game.
The Lady Patriots jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the fifth set behind an error by the Lady Scots, a kill by their outside hitter and an ace. York then rallied the Lady Scots at the net with three blocks in a row to tie the fifth set, 4-4.
Pinecrest regained the lead with a kill and back-to-back hitting errors by the Lady Scots. Wheeler called a time out following a Lady Patriots kill that put her team in an 8-11 hole. The Lady Patriots closed out the match without allowing the Lady Scots to score another point winning the fifth set, 15-8.
“I felt a little deja vu, that last fifth game set when they played at Scotland it was probably one of the best games I’ve seen my girls play. They just couldn’t make it happen (tonight),” Wheeler said. “Very disappointed, if we had played like we did at the end of the match the whole time we would have gotten the win.”
The loss moves the Lady Scots to 13-8 overall and 7-5 in SAC-8 play while Pinecrest improves to 13-4 and 9-3 in conference play. Scotland remains tied with Hoke in third place at 7-5 while Pinecest sits alone in second and Richmond remains a top the standings at 12-0.
“This was the big one in terms of seeding for the conference tournament,” said Wheeler. “We have a big redemption game against Lumberton we took a pretty rough loss at Lumberton that was unexpected. They have to be ready to finish these last two games strong with wins. Knock off an undefeated team on their Senior Night, that would be awesome — and I think we can do it.”
The Lady Scots host Lumberton on Tuesday, Oct. 10 for Senior Night. That match will begin at 5 p.m., following the JV game the team’s six seniors will be recognized. The team wraps up their season in Rockingham on Thursday, Oct. 12 with a re-match against Richmond. That match is also scheduled to begin at 5 p.m.
Amber Hatten can be reached at 910-506-3170.
