After their win against Cuthbertson a day prior, SV’s varsity girls’ volleyball team achieved another astounding victory against the Marvin Ridge Mavericks on Wednesday, October 19th, at Weddington High School. 

With Marvin’s defeat, the Lady Spartans won first place at the Southern Carolina Conference Tournament, earning their spot in the 2022 NCHSAA Volleyball State Championships. 

Before the game, the girls had high spirits and were ready to play their hardest. “I just told the girls to go all out, go for every ball, be aggressive, play hard, and have fun,” head coach Gabby Garcia said. “I mean this is for the seniors. This is the last tournament that they would play, so I just said, leave it all out, and we worked hard for it, so I’m proud of them.” 

Winning the first set was quick and simple with SV taking the lead and ending the set with a score of 17-25. As the second set commenced, the girls had great energy and made some amazing plays as they fought for every point. They wrapped it up with a stunning score of 16-25, sweeping Marvin under the carpet for a second time. 

The girls were confident that they could wrap it up and finish Marvin off in the next set. “ This is just another match. We’re not trying to do anything different, we’re not trying to change anything up,” assistant coach Angie Goodman stated during the set. “We’re here just to continue on and to have the same goals and aspirations and play as a team.”

The Lady Spartans ran into a couple of roadblocks that delayed their victory in the third set. This time around, Marvin stole the lead and dragged the girls down a hole that they could not get out of. After a long fight, the Mavericks won the set with an extremely close score of 25-23, setting up a fourth set.

After the Spartans’ loss, they discussed how they could improve. “It was more of like a question as to why that happened and what did we lack in that set, so it was just to pull our team back together from what just happened,” senior Aliyah Mitchell responded. “It was our serve-receive that was off during that third set, and we just needed to get back together and trust other.”

Heading into the fourth set, the Spartans were ready to take back the game, win the conference, and earn a guaranteed spot at the NCHSAA 4A State Championship. Tension was high, and the crowd was screaming. In the end, the score was 21-25 and SV defeated the Mavericks for a second time this season. With victory in mind, players are excited and have hopes of winning State. “We have a really strong team this year. We’ve worked really hard, and I know that we can go far,¨ junior Kyra Joy Arnold stated.

After the game, the varsity volleyball girls’ team celebrated the nominated athletes of the year in UCPS. Among these nominees were SV’s senior Aaliyah Mitchell, senior Hailey Pierce, senior Amaya Hall, and junior Kyra Joy Arnold, along with other volleyball athletes across Union County district. The award for the UCPS Player of the Year went to Aaliyah Mitchell and the gymnasium was filled with applause.

After winning the title, Mitchell was ecstatic and proud because she has been working towards this since her freshman year. “I think the celebration of the win is definitely a core memory now. I felt really good after a long fight through that game,” Mitchell said. “It’s definitely a big milestone.” 

After this game with the Mavericks the SV’s varsity girls’ volleyball team went on to fight more battles and will face one more during their championship game against the Watauga Pioneers on Saturday, October, 29th, at Watauga High School.