A point away Thursday night from defending state champion Hendersonville forcing a deciding fifth set, Polk County senior Ashley Love had a message for herself, her teammates and anyone else who felt like settling in for a winner-take-all final game.
“You work until the score is at 25,” Love said. “You never know what is going to happen.”
What did happen is that Hendersonville left Polk County Middle School still searching for that 25th point, Polk County scoring the final five points to hand the Bearcats a 25-22, 22-25, 25-16, 26-24 loss in a key Western Highlands Conference showdown. A broken water main in Columbus that left Polk County High without water much of Thursday led to the game being played at the middle school.
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Now 10-3 overall and 6-0 in conference play, Polk County heads into the second half of its league schedule with a one-game lead over Mountain Heritage, a two-game edge on Hendersonville and wins over both. It’s far too soon to start clearing room in the Polk County trophy case, but the Wolverines are now the master of their WHC fate.
“This is such a confidence boost for the girls and myself,” said Polk County head coach Molly Hill. “We’ve had some ups and downs, but this game proves it. Like I told the girls after the game, there are no excuses. We’ve got to play like this the rest of the season.”
Trailing a set, Hendersonville (6-5, 4-2) opened a 10-5 lead in the fourth game, its outside hitting finding seams in the Wolverine defense. Polk County cut the lead to two, but the margin then stayed anywhere from three to five points until the Bearcats led 19-16.
At that point, an Addie Lynch kill and a Love block trimmed the deficit to one and led Hendersonville to take a timeout. Polk County came out of the break and scored three of the next four points to take a 21-20 lead, but Hendersonville answered with a run of its own, four straight points to make it 24-21.
Love smashed a kill to make it 24-22 and return the serve to Polk County. A Reagan Waddell kill made it 24-23, and a Hendersonville spike that sailed wide evened the score at 24-24.
With Polk County fans on both sides of the court at their loudest, Waddell delivered another kill to give Polk a 25-24 edge and bring about another Hendersonville timeout. On the ensuing point, Polk County set Love in the middle, and Hendersonville’s middle blockers converged to deny her kill attempt. Instead, Love calmly tapped the ball to the left of the block and to the floor, sealing the match.
“Just being a senior and beating them at home, this game means everything,” said Love, who had 15 kills, 16 digs and two aces. “They were ahead three points, but we did it.”
The teams swapped 25-22 wins in the first two sets of the night, then battled to an 8-8 deadlock in the third set. A Kendall Hall ace sparked a run of six straight points for a 14-8 advantage that Polk soon pushed to 20-13. At that point, Love served an ace and Lynch followed with a kill to make it 22-13. A Waddell kill that landed just inside the back line moments later made it 23-14, and the Wolverines soon closed out the set on a Hendersonville miscue, winning 25-16.
That set the stage for the final-set drama.
“I kept telling them we’ve got to take it, we’ve got to take it now,” Hill said of the final set. “We had to play our game. The girls were nervous, and I told them don’t play scared. They knew what they wanted, and they got it done. I’m so proud of them.”
Waddell had 13 kills and 15 digs, with Lynch adding 12 kills and two blocks. Ansley Lynch had three kills and two blocks, Hall had 27 digs and two aaces, Lauren Ketwitz had 10 digs and Savannah Ross had 44 assists and 13 digs as Polk County defeated Hendersonville for the second straight time.
The Wolverines return to action on Tuesday, traveling to Madison.
