Murphy – Round two went to Murphy.
After breaking a four-year losing streak to the Lady Bulldogs earlier this season, Robbinsville (16-2) traveled to Cherokee County on Oct. 3 for the rematch, but fell in four sets to the defending Smoky Mountain Conference champions.
Still, the Lady Knights are not deterred as they enter the home stretch of the campaign, still tied for first place in the division.
“We had a lot of errors at Murphy and definitely did not play our best game,” said Robbinsville head coach Kadey Phillips. “Moving forward, we will be making some adjustments, hopefully becoming more aggressive with our offensive game and limiting our errors.
“We will be ready to meet them (Murphy) again, come tournament time.”
Murphy (15-2) opened the match with a haymaker, overwhelming Robbinsville at the net with a barrage of heavy hits. The Lady Dogs quickly jumped ahead 17-5, and closed out the first set for resounding 25-13 set win.
With the tone established, the Lady Dogs rose to a 6-0 lead in set two. However, the Lady Knights managed to stem the tide temporarily, whittling their deficit to 12-10 at one point. But Murphy continued to pour it on, closing out the set 25-17 and claiming the two-set advantage going into the third.
Facing a hefty 2-0 deficit, the Lady Knights rallied to claim the third set 25-21 in a tightly contested set of rallies that had the packed gymnasium on the edge of their seats.
The team’s exchanged points for the majority of the fourth set, with Murphy jumping ahead by two points and Robbinsville rallying to tie the match time-and-time again.
Eventually after the team’s found themselves tied at 20-20, the Lady Dogs created a bit of separation at the very end of the set, going on a 5-2 run to claim the fourth and deciding set.
Leading the attack at both the net and serving line was Karlyn Matheson, who fired 24 kills and five aces into Murphy territory. Yeika Jimenez had a team-best three blocks, while Liz Ayers, Gabby Hooper and Ivy Odom each had 13 digs. Ayers also recorded 29 assists.
Robbinsville quickly rebounded from the loss with a 25-14, 25-16, 25-14 sweep at Highlands (9-10) on Monday and a 25-6, 25-12, 25-23 win at Hiwassee Dam (7-9) on Tuesday night.
Individual stats from both the Highlands and Hiwassee Dam matches were not received by press time.
Junior varsity
A highly-disputed loss at Murphy got the junior varsity Lady Knights’
(7-9) week off to a sour start.
Robbinsville had 15 points pulled off the scoreboard in the first set, after a player checked in that was not on the lineup card. The normal infraction would be one point, but officials were adamant and the final outcome of the match was a 10-25, 25-23, 6-15 defeat.
The Knights regrouped to sweep both the Lady Highlanders (25-23, 25-22) and the Lady Eagles (25-17, 25-15).
Middle school
Robbinsville (5-8) fell to Murphy and Hiwassee Dam in middle school action.
Set scores from both matches were not obtained by press time.
Noah Shatzer of the Cherokee Scout also contributed to this report.