Davie nails down share of first in conference volleyball race

Published 8:26 am Thursday, October 21, 2021

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By Brian Pitts
Enterprise Record

Davie’s varsity volleyball picked up a solid nonconference win before securing a share of the Central Piedmont Conference championship.
The War Eagles were missing a valuable component at Central Davidson on Oct. 11. Abigail Reynolds was out sick, but Davie still overtook an opponent that was 16-6 overall and 8-0 in its 3-A conference. The scores were 25-19, 23-25, 25-23, 25-16.
“That was a huge, huge lineup shift for us,” coach Amber Brandon said of Reynolds’ absence. “We had just hit our stride with everybody healthy. We felt her absence.
“(Central is) definitely talented. We try to schedule a pretty challenging nonconference schedule. I purposely scheduled them late in the season to try to have a challenging match at the end. It was a strength-of-schedule booster for the playoffs.”
When the War Eagles won the first set, their streak of winning sets reached 13. They lost their mojo in the second set, but recovered in time to end the Spartans’ winning streak at five.
“We didn’t play really well in the first set,” she said. “We got super lucky that we got that win. The intensity and fire from the past two weeks wasn’t really there. It was a good moment of fighting back. Most of our matches have been three sets. We’ve won in three; we’ve lost in three.”
Ali Angell did what she’s been doing pretty much all season.
“Ali had a good match. Ali always has a good match,” she said. “That’s been the theme of the year.
“Kiah Mathis had a really good match. She put a couple balls away with some power. Aimee Loj had a good night. The setters did a good job of distributing the ball, and Molly Bures had a good kill down the line that jolted us back (in the third set).”
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The War Eagles were supposed to dominate their last two CPC matches, and they took care of business at Parkland on Oct. 12 and at home against Glenn on Oct. 14.
The scores against the Mustangs were 25-6, 25-6, 25-3. Parkland fell to 0-17 overall, losing 51 of 53 sets in the process.
The scores against Glenn (12-9 overall) were 25-9, 25-12, 25-14. It was Senior Night for seven girls: Reynolds, Loj, Bures, Angell, Kimball Little, Peyton Justice and Sadie Eddinger.
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The War Eagles (19-3, seven straight wins) reached 19 victories for the sixth time in their 45-year history. Brandon has coached three of the six squads.
They earned their second regular-season title in four seasons (the 2018 team won the regular season and tournament). That’s more significant when you consider Davie won nothing from 2003-17.
West Forsyth beat East Forsyth 3-0 to share first with Davie. Davie and West both went 12-2. Reagan (11-3), East (9-5), Glenn (6-8), Reynolds (4-10), Tabor (2-12) and Parkland (0-14) round out the standings.