BREVARD – Screaming to be heard about the chaotic den that was Brevard High School’s gymnasium Thursday night, 15 points left to decide a season’s fate, Polk County volleyball coach Molly Hill kept shouting the same mantra.
Faster, better, stronger. Faster, better, stronger.
And swing big.
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Which is exactly what the Wolverines did to finally outlast Brevard in a fingernail-chewing, nerve-pinching bit of drama known as the fifth set. Two hours of play came down to two points, Addie Lynch coming off the right side to hammer home one kill, Ashley Love then blasting one from the middle to give Polk County a 3-2 victory over the Blue Devils, a 24-26, 25-18, 19-25, 25-23, 15-13 third-round state playoff victory.
It marked the second five-set match between the two schools on Brevard’s court in an eight-day span. Brevard won the regular-season finale last week; the Wolverines won the one Thursday that mattered.
“Incredible, emotional,” said Polk County senior setter Savannah Ross, wiping away the tears more than a few players and no doubt some parents shed after the match. “I can’t even describe it.”
Polk County (20-7) will travel Saturday to face Maiden (26-1), the top seed in the 2A West bracket. That match is scheduled for 2 p.m. It has been a dream season for Maiden, in the fourth round for the first time in school history. Thursday felt much like a pleasant vision for Polk County, in the fourth round for the first time since 2012.
“I’m so excited. It’s hard for me to breathe after jumping up and down and celebrating,” said a hoarse Hill after the match. “I’m so proud of this team.”
Forget that old sports cliche about it being hard to beat a good team three times in a season. Brevard, which swept its season series with Polk, did everything but Thursday, and the Blue Devils nearly did so without the services of standout Ashley McBee. The do-everything-well junior crumpled to the court with a leg injury in the second set, the game tied at 10, and her loss seemed to briefly rattle Brevard as Polk pulled away to win the set and even the match.
The Blue Devils, though, huddled between sets and responded with their best work of the match. Aggressively blocking and hitting, led by junior Danielle Troyer, Brevard controlled the net and the tempo in the third set, racing to a 6-1 lead. Polk got no closer than three points in the game before finally dropping it, and when McBee came out to serve the start of the fourth set, everything seemed to be in the Devils’ favor, though McBee would play only briefly the rest of the night.
Brevard scored five straight points midway through the fourth for a 15-11 lead, leading Hill to take a timeout. Polk’s Reagan Waddell came out of the break and pounded a kill from outside, the first of three straight kills, that seemed to jolt the Wolverines, Polk evening the match at 15. The teams then swapped points until Polk inched ahead at 21-19 on an Ashley Love tip. Two Love kills and a Brevard error helped Polk reach set point at 24-22, and one point later, Waddell put down another kill for the set winner.
The deciding set swung, for a time, in Polk’s direction at the midway point, two Love kills and a service ace, plus an Ansley Lynch, putting Polk up 10-5 in the race to 15. The Wolverines still led by five at 12-7 before Brevard fashioned its own comeback, pulling within 13-11 before a Troyer block and dink evened the match at 13. With the noise from both fan bases nearly deafening, Hill called a timeout and reminded the Wolverines to, again, swing big.
Addie Lynch and Love did just that for the night’s final two points.
“I challenged them in the fifth game to let it go, to play and finish it,” Hill said. “In that fifth game, I wanted it to be known who we are, to play like we were capable of. I kept telling them, faster, better, stronger, faster, better, stronger. We could play faster, play better and play stronger than the other team. They did that, and I’m so proud of them.
“I felt like in that fourth game we started questioning ourselves, and we lost our focus. I told them we had to play to win and stop playing not to lose. We had to hit balls and get kills and get points. We had to try every time to get some kind of aggressive swing. They did that.”
Love had 21 kills and 25 digs, Waddell had 19 kills and 26 digs, Addie Lynch had nine kills and 10 digs, Ansley Lynch had five kills and five digs, every kill seemingly coming at a vital time. Kendall Hall had 21 digs, Cameron Capozzi had 14 digs and Ross had 56 assists and 18 digs on a night few will soon forget.
“No one expected us to get to the fourth round,” Ross said. “I can’t wait to see what we do next.”
