Robbinsville – In their first outing of the season, the Robbinsville Lady Knights were pushed to their limit.
And yet, they prevailed.
It took five sets, but Robbinsville (1-0) bested the 3A Franklin Lady Panthers (0-1) to the tune of 14-25, 17-25, 27-25, 25-16, 10-15 on Monday night.
“I’ll be honest; the girls far exceeded my expectations. We’ve had one practice with all of our girls here,” Lady Knights head coach Kadey Phillips said. “I didn’t know what to expect coming into today because I hadn’t really seen us together.
“Today was also the first day of school, so a lot of things were not in our favor. I told them before the game, ‘Win or lose, set the tone for the season.’ I think they did that.”
The Knights’ 2-0 advantage made things seem to be well in hand. Franklin scored two quick points in set one, but Robbinsville went on a 7-0 run in response to quell the Panthers’ momentum. The Lady Knights never trailed again during the set.
Franklin provided more of a fight in set two, but Robbinsville pulled away midway through and never looked back. Set three went down to the wire, but the Lady Knights were within victory twice down the stretch.
However, the Panthers edged out a victory and capitalized in set four with a convincing victory.
Phillips said Robbinsville’s tenacity then went on-display when the team returned to the locker room before the tie-breaking fifth set.
“I think we got tired,” Phillips said. “We started making some errors, but in the locker room we talked about how hard they had worked to get to this point, and they weren’t willing to give it up.”
Both sides traded momentum for much of set five, but Robbinsville pulled away late and even a last-second timeout by Franklin was not enough to deny the Knights a victory.
“I thought Kensley (Phillips) had a phenomenal game,” coach Phillips said. “She was really quick on the floor. When the ball was set to her, she scored almost every time. Yeika (Jimenez) is always our go-to and she did a phenomenal job. Ally (Ayers) was out last week, so for her to come in and pick up where she left off was good. Halee (Anderson) did really good defending the back row today. She rarely made any mistakes.”
Prior to the match, the junior varsity Lady Knights (0-1) dropped their match to Franklin in straight sets, 25-13, 25-19.