The Midway Lady Raiders (10-1) volleyball team came back from a 1-0 set deficit to take a 3-1 victory over Goldsboro on Tuesday evening.
After the first set was dropped 25-22, the Lady Raiders jumped out to a 6-2 lead in the second. After taking another point, Midway’s Cailyn Hewlett was able to land an ace to keep the run going, followed by a kill from Anne Faith Williams, who played middle blocker in the game.
A couple of errors from the Lady Raiders allowed Goldsboro to get back in the set, but Midway held its lead at 9-6. Both sides traded turns in rallies to get points on the board, but the lead wasn’t threatened. After a return from the Lady Raiders hit the net, Goldsboro wasn’t able to take advantage. Midway’s Kyleigh Stonerock blocked an attack from the Lady Cougars to put her team up 18-13. Three straight kills from Hewlett only increased the lead for the Lady Raiders before a serve out of bounds by Mackenzie Odom gave possession to their opponents. After a service point, Goldsboro hit a return out of bounds and set up the Lady Raiders to finish the set. At 24-15, one last kill from Hewlett sealed the 25-15 set win.
In the third set, the offense for Midway continued where it left off. After an overhit by Goldsboro, the Lady Raiders jumped out to a 4-2 lead and added another point from a Hewlett kill. Goldsboro managed to grab one of its own after a return slipped past Stonerock’s block attempt. A kill from Midway’s Ryleigh Dale added to the team’s lead as Midway kept the momentum.
Goldsboro found more success in the middle of the set following a Lady Raiders serve that hit the middle of the net. On the following rally, a defensive return by Midway’s Ella Clark fell past her before she could save it. At 10-7, the Lady Cougars added a second when a return from Midway’s Aubrey Williams connected, but a few seconds late. The Lady Raiders stopped the small Goldsboro run after Odom was able to nail a spike kill.
Midway went on a 9-0 run, highlighted by a kill from Hewlett and two kills from Odom to maintain its momentum. The huge run was followed by a smaller 4-1 run to give the Lady Raiders a 25-10 set win.
In the final set, Goldsboro punched first into a 4-1 lead after Stonerock blocked the Lady Cougars’ return into her own net. But Midway fought back early, as Hewlett added two straight kills and then an additional one from Clark. The second Hewlett kill gave Midway the lead at 6-5, and it started to build. A defensive block by Williams handed the Lady Raiders a five-point cushion. The Lady Cougars added a few points of their own, but the Midway offense finished strong, as the Lady Raiders won the fourth 25-12 to win the match.
“Tonight, we played really well, but in the first set when we lost, it was an energy thing,” Dale said in an interview following the game. “We ended up gathering our energy and keeping our heads up, and that caused us to win all three sets.”
A key reason why the Lady Raiders were able to overcome the early set loss was their mentality.
“(We didn’t) let the mistakes in the past affect how we played in the present,” Dale said. “We made sure that we kept our heads up.”
The win over Goldsboro was the team’s first after its 9-0 start was interrupted by Harnett Central back on Sept. 9.
“We worked on our serve receive and passes,” Dale explained of the adjustments made going into the Goldsboro match. “We had a little bit of a downfall in our passing, because we couldn’t get a perfect pass to a set, but we’ve adjusted, and lately we’ve been having good passes.”
Hewlett led the Lady Raiders with 18 kills on the attacking end, while Williams and Odom also contributed with 12 and nine kills, respectively.
“I just had to get faster, like faster crunches and snap really hard to go for the ball and go to the open spaces,” Odom said regarding her attacking mentality.
Odom felt that the team’s communication helped keep it in the following sets against Goldsboro. Before the game against Cape Fear on Wednesday, which Midway won 3-1, she emphasized what the team needed to do to follow up its win over the Lady Cougars.
“We just have to be present, and not just exist in the game,” Odom said.
For Midway head coach Paul Hairfield, the biggest adjustment the team made from the game against Harnett was the familiarity of being down.
“I think a big thing was getting them used to more pressure,” Hairfield explained. “I’ll give Harnett credit; they were able to maintain pressure really well throughout the game. I think thus far, besides them, we’ve been playing teams where the pressure would ebb and flow. In practice, I took the role of maintaining a higher level of pressure and putting the girls under those moments. That way, in here, we’re not experiencing it in-game or midgame. We’re used to that level of pressure and intensity, so it’s nothing new. They’re on the court, and they’re ready.”
The next game for the Lady Raiders will be against Spring Creek at home on Tuesday, Sept. 22, at 5:30 p.m., after securing a 3-0 win over Princeton this past Thursday.