The Chuckey-Doak volleyball team had some rocky moments on Wednesday evening, but finished strong to earn a 3-1 win over North Greene 25-18, 16-25, 25-11, 25-18.
“It was an up and down day, but in the end they chose to respond,” Chuckey-Doak coach Marissa Snapp said. “They played through those ups and downs and pushed for every point. I’m very proud of how mentally tough they played tonight.”
The Lady Black Knights complete the season sweep over North Greene and now they have one tune up left before the District 1-AA Tournament starts next week. The Lady Black Knights will start postseason play on Monday against Unicoi County. North Greene will wrap up District 1-A play against Hampton on Thursday and then begin tournament action on October 8 against West Greene.
“We have to keep that mental toughness going forward,” Snapp said. “Volleyball is a game of errors. You are going to make mistakes. It’s not about the mistakes, it’s about how you adjust on the next ball. This is a very talented group, but they have to stay mentally checked in.”
Wednesday’s action started with Chuckey-Doak jumping in front 5-1 in the first set after and ace from Jayden Myers and a dump from Chloe Kirkpatrick. North Greene was able to take advantage of four errant kill attempts to close the gap to 6-5.
Isabelle Karriker was able to get the Lady Black Knights going again by leaping high above the net and slamming down a pass from Kirkpatrick. Karriker came up with a kill on the next play and when she landed an ace Chuckey-Doak was in front 12-6.
North Greene’s Chloe Grubb cut the lead to 13-10 with a right-side kill, but soon after Jacey Taylor sent over a pair of knuckling serves that the Lady Huskies could not handle.
The lead moved between three and six points in the late stages before Taylor put away the 25-18 win with three more aces.
The second set was all North Greene at the start as the Lady Huskies jumped in front 5-0 with Cadie McDevitt scoring on a pair of blocks and Chloe Keys landing an ace.
Chuckey-Doak closed the gap to 7-6 on a powerful cross-court slam from Taylor. Taylor made it a one-point game again at 12-11 with a left side slam.
The Lady Black Knights then seemingly lost sight of the boundaries and missed on seven kill attempts which allowed North Greene to take control at 22-13. In the set Chuckey-Doak gave away 10 points on errant attacks while North Greene scored 10 attacking points.
North Greene evened things at 1-1 with a 25-16 win.
In the third set Chuckey-Doak went to Karriker early and she seemed to correct the attacking woes. Three-straight kills put the Lady Knights in front 3-1.
Josie Graham and Kinlea Eastep answered with swings for North Greene, but Karriker added two more kills to make it 7-4.
“That was so important from Belle and after that everyone else was feeding off of her energy,” Snapp said. “Everybody gets so excited when you get kills like that. That got everybody swinging harder and playing more confident.”
Chuckey-Doak kept up the attack with Kallie Dobson, Jayden Myers and Taylor all landing big swings on the way to a 14-6 lead.
Karriker never slowed down and closed out the set with four more heavy hits from the middle and a scoring tip in the 25-11 win.
“We had to eliminate the unforced errors. We can’t give away 16 points, that’s not how you win games. But they reset and only had three errors in the third set,” Snapp said. “I was proud of them for how they answered after a rough patch.”
The Lady Black Knights kept the momentum rolling in the fourth set. Dobson and Karriker alternated scoring swings on the way to a 5-1 lead.
Jessie Dayton sent over an ace and Karriker added two more kills as the lead grew to 13-4.
Two kills from Taylor and a backrow kill from Karriker pushed Chuckey-Doak’s lead to 17-7.
North Greene’s Graham broke the streak by diving for a free ball and sending it to the back line. She then landed a kill from the left side.
The Lady Huskies began to chip away at the lead with Graham leading the way. She scored on two kills, returned a block and scored on a free ball as the margin narrowed to 20-16.
Dobson got Chuckey-Doak going with a right-side kill and Karriker added another kill from the middle to finish the 25-18 win.
Karriker led Chuckey-Doak on Wednesday with 21 kills and 15 digs. Taylor had 14 kills and 30 digs to go with eight aces. Dobson had nine kills. Kirkpatrick had 43 assists and 22 digs. Macy Church had 17 digs, Hayden Kenney had 16 digs and Dayton had 15 digs.
