Fort Mill’s Abby Snearly goes up for a block in the Jackets match against Catawba Ridge. Fort Mill won in five sets.
Photo by Rob Upton

Like two prize fighters slugging it out to the end, the Fort Mill Yellow Jackets volleyball team edged the Catawba Ridge Copperheads Wednesday in five sets to win 3-2.

The Jackets won 23-25, 25-12, 25-23, 15-25, 15-13 coming from behind in the fifth set.

Catawba Ridge started the final set going up 6-0, but Fort Mill rallied to tie the set at 10-10 and force a Copperhead time out. Fort Mill then was able to start moving ahead and score five of the last eight points.

“They aren’t the same team we saw last year,” said Fort Mill head coach Kelly Jones. “So, kudos to Catawba Ridge. “It took us a while to get started.”

Since the season is an abbreviated one, Jones said she has been constantly tinkering with her line up to try and find the best combination.

“Every game we have tried something a little different,” she said.

Catawba Ridge rallied in the opening set after Fort Mill jumped out to a 13-8 lead by scoring seven straight points. Coming out of a time out, the Copperheads started chipping away at the Fort Mill score to tie the set at 23, before scoring the final two set points.

The second set was all Fort Mill as they started 7-1 forcing a Copperhead time out and never looked back going up 19-10 before tying the match at 1-1 with a 25-12 second set win.

Fort Mill started to lose some of their momentum in the third set. Catawba Ridge went up 7-5, but Fort Mill would battle back to take a 15-12 lead. The set itself was tied up multiple times, before the Jackets edged the Copperheads 25-23.

However, Fort Mill couldn’t keep that momentum going their way in the fourth set as Catawba Ridge led the entire time jumping out to a 12-6 lead before a Jackets’ time out. Even after the time out, the Copperheads kept their foot on the gas to take the fourth set 25-15.

That momentum powered them into the fifth set, but Catawba Ridge couldn’t maintain it as they started making mistakes.  Catawba Ridge head coach Alicia Lisee said consecutive errors on her team’s part really hurt them in the fifth set and credited the experience Fort Mill had for the win. The Copperheads still have no seniors on their team, despite being in their second year of existence.

“We made errors and shot ourselves in the foot too many times in a row,” she said. “In the end we ended up paying for that.”

Fort Mill is 3-2 overall on the season and 1-2 in Region 3-5A while Catawba Ridge is 6-4-3 overall and 3-1 in Region 3-4A.

Golf

The Nation Ford girls’ golf team beat York 186 to 208 Wednesday afternoon at Spring Lake Country Club to improve to 4-3 on the season.

Vivian Harris led the Falcons with a 42 followed by a 47 from Katie Griggs, a 48 from Sara McCaskill and a 49 from Sarah Tran. Tran scored a hole-in-one on the 87-yard, par 3 ninth hole at the course.  

Nation Ford is scheduled to take on Fort Mill in a head-to-head match Thursday at Springfield Golf Club.

Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep