The Midway and Clinton volleyball squads met up for the regular season finale on Thursday with the winner of the matchup set to claim the title of East Central Conference Regular Season Champion. The Lady Raiders entered the match with one loss handed to them way back at the beginning of the conference schedule by East Duplin. The Lady Horses also entered with one loss, handed to them by Midway in a contest that went five sets at Clinton. Thursday’s game at Midway was Senior Night for the Lady Raiders, adding fuel to the fire for the winner-take-all grudge match. Things looked promising early on for the Lady Raiders, but the Lady Horses caught fire and surged from behind to catapult themselves to a 3-0 set win to claim the title.
The first set was going highly in Midway’s favor as they led the opening frame, 22-12. But, things quickly came crashing down as Clinton belted off a 13-1 run to snatch victory right out of the jaws of defeat, 25-23.
The second set also unfolded in favor of the Lady Dark Horses, who claimed the 2-0 lead by the 25-19 score.
The third set was a much closer affair as neither team gained much of an advantage. The lead waffled a few times but ultimately, Clinton took the final set 25-20 and seized the outright conference crown.
After the game, Clinton head coach Jennifer Edgerton praised the performance of her team.
“It’s the best the girls have played all season,” Edgerton said. “We were together, we were making great passes setting each other up. Defense came first and that’s what we were trying to do. We are ready for the tournament now.”
Over on the Midway sidelines, head coach Brand Wrench’s comments were a stark difference.
“Under our circumstances, I feel the girls did the best they could,” she said, acknowledging Midway’s libero Miranda Byrd being sidelined with a wrist injury as well with another player member enduring the loss of a family member. “We were out of our norm and just didn’t have the luck on our side to pull it off.”
“Tonight was a big night. We love playing good teams. It makes us better – win or lose there is a lesson learned. Clinton played a great game. Again, we did a great job under the circumstances we’ve had going on the past couple days. Our girls adjusted well and did what they could. Inconsistency was a factor again tonight, though. We had a set of too many errors, without points earned for us and that hurt badly. It was hard to come back from. Overall, Natalie did good on the back line and Emma had a good round of serves with aces. Caitlyn hit hard tonight and picked up several kills as always and Makayla added several kills, too. Jordan placed the ball in open areas, bringing us points and Allison had a good serving game, as well,” she concluded.
With the win, Clinton improves to 21-1 overall and finishes in first place of the East Central Conference at 11-1.
For Midway, they finish the regular season at 16-6 overall and in second place of the conference at 10-2.
Both teams will compete in the Conference Tournament next week which is set to be held at East Duplin beginning on Monday.
