Mike Ridaught
There was a luau theme inside the Newberry High School gymnasium for the Panthers’ volleyball match against visiting Valdosta (GA).
And while the host Panthers kept the home fans entertained early, the visiting Wildcats spoiled the festivities by rallying from an early 1-0 deficit to win in four sets 20-25, 26-24, 25-21, 25-15.
“We killed ourselves,” Rone said. “We hit the ball out of bounds, we did a lot of serve receiving right at the net, and they’re a very athletic bunch up front so when you pass the ball on a serve to the net they just go up and dump it down and every time we got momentum we would just kill ourselves.”
The Class 1A Panthers raced out to quick 4-0 lead in the opening set thanks to kills by junior Chloe Jones and senior Hailey Tharp and a pair of blocks by senior Sarah Watson.
Newberry (5-6) has been working Jones back in the lineup after she missed much of the season with a sprained shoulder.
“We actually gave her 10 swings against Branford (3-0 loss on Sept. 6), so just a little bit, and then Monday (3-1 win at Dixie County) we turned her loose and she’s played pretty good,” Rone said. “She hasn’t practiced, yet. Some of her errors are stuff that we can definitely fix and she’s got to learn where she is and get that timing down, but what she’s done after not doing anything since Aug. 3 is pretty impressive.”
Jones, who added three aces, and Tharp led the Panthers will 11 kills each.
They each had a kill late in the second set and it appeared the Panthers might take a 2-0 lead against the Wildcats (11-10), a Class 7A school in Georgia.
Following a 23-20 Valdosta lead, Tharp’s sixth kill of the set made it a two-point game.
Then, two aces by junior Sarah Priester was sandwiched around Tharp’s kill, which tied the set at 23-all.
Priester’s second ace during the 4-0 run gave the Panthers, who finished with eight aces, a 24-23 lead.
However, Valdosta scored the next three points to win the set on a block at the net by sophomore Lauren Bloom.
In the fourth set, Newberry took a 16-12 lead on a 6-0 run. However, Valdosta answered with 9-0 run.
The Panthers got within one, 22-21, on a kill by Tharp, who was the Pavlik Orthodontics Athlete of the Week for the week of Aug. 21.
But Valdosta scored the next three points, including an ace by senior Fiora Shen, whose serve clipped the net for a 25-21 win.
“I feel like we were even tonight with that team and if we had cleaned it up a little bit better we probably would have come out on top,” Rone said. “But you’ve got to give them credit. They just got the ball over on us and we made mistakes, and you just can’t do that when you’re a smaller team like we are.”
Another 9-0 run in the fourth set helped the Wildcats put the Panthers away.
“We’ve got to learn how to play within ourselves,” Rone said. “When you get the good set take advantage of it. When you don’t, make the other team work for it. Don’t just blow it out of bounds.”
Senior Hanna Templeton led Newberry with 28 assists and junior Malana Kennard had a team-leading 13 digs for the Panthers, who will travel to Jacksonville this weekend for the Jacksonville Juniors Volleyball Association (JJVA) River City Classic.
Newberry will face Union County (Lake Butler) at 5:30 p.m. on Friday in the first game of a two-day event.
