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By Jed Blackwell

 

The outcome of Wednesday’s volleyball match against West Henderson wasn’t what Polk County wanted.

The effort absolutely was.

The Wolverines dropped a thriller to the Falcons in a tiebreaker set, falling 3-2 (28-26, 25-22, 21-25, 23-25, 16-14).

“I felt like we battled in every set,” Polk County coach Molly Hill said. “I told them in the locker room, those games where it’s two, three, four points and that’s what we’re winning by or losing by, those are games that can go either way. We clean up two or three errors and that game’s ours. I told them to keep their heads high, because they battled.”

The match couldn’t have started much worse for the Wolverines (3-1), as they fell behind 7-0 and looked in danger of being blown out early. But they clawed all the way back to tie it at 10 and led 14-12 on a kill by Kylie Lewis. The rest of the first set was a war, with the Wolverines taking their last lead on a set point at 26-25 before falling.

The second set was much tighter, with neither team leading by more than three points, and three ties in the late stages, the last one at 21-21. West Henderson (4-0) took control from there, scoring four of the match’s last five points to take the win and a two-set advantage.

Polk County stormed back, putting the first true distance between the teams since that early West Henderson run. Midway through the third set, the Wolverines took control, opening a 19-11 lead on a kill by Morgan Yoder. West Henderson chipped away and got it to 23-19, but Sophia Overholt’s kill stopped the Falcons’ rally, and the Wolverines closed it out.

The fourth set was a wild one. West Henderson looked to be in control as middle blocker Emma Bryson, a University of Georgia commit, began to take over. The Falcons turned to Bryson when they needed a big point, and she knocked down five of her 23 kills on the night in the fourth set.

But the Wolverines’ hitters were up to the task. Yoder, Overholt and Mia Bradley took turns coming up huge in the fourth set, but the turning point was a service run by Hayden Blackwell. Taking serve trailing 17-13, Blackwell didn’t give up the serve until the Wolverines led 20-18, notching seven straight points to take the lead.

“I was just thinking get it over and get it in,” she said of her run. “I knew we had to have those points.”

Bryson picked West Henderson up and helped tie the game at 23-23, but the Wolverines took the final two points to force the deciding fifth set.

After another nip-and-tuck set, Polk County seemed to be in control. Bradley notched a kill to make it 12-12, and Yoder followed with a big kill and a soft tip, both of which found the floor, for a 14-12 lead and match point.

It wasn’t to be, as the Falcons tied it, took the lead on a block by Bryson and put it away 16-14 to take the tiebreaker.

“This is the first truly big game that we’ve had,” Hill said. “You could tell at first that they were a little nervous, but they worked through that. To pull back out of that first set and go to a tiebreaker, I’m really proud of that. That’s hard to do. It didn’t go our way, but it’s a learning thing.”

Yoder led the Wolverines with 18 kills, while Bradley had 17 and Overholt knocked down 14. Charley Dusenbury dished out 50 assists for Polk County, while Bradley had 30 digs, Overholt had 23, Blackwell had 21 and Yoder had 15.