Uwharrie Charter falls just short of state championship

WINSTON-SALEM — Eyes were red. Tears were falling, but the pride the girls and coaching staff of the Uwharrie Charter Academy volleyball team exuded shined above everything else last Friday evening at the NCHSAA state 4-A championship match held at the Joel Coliseum.

The Eagles fell just short of their first volleyball state championship, dropping a five-set battle with Lake Norman Charter with the Knights claiming a 25-18, 14-25, 21-25, 25-17, 15-9 win, but among the tears and the what-could-have-beens were thoughts of a season that produced incredible streaks, tremendous team play and highlight-reel action throughout the season.

“It didn’t go the way we wanted, but I think going into it, no one in the world was giving us a shot,” UCA veteran coach Lee Kennell said. “I think people assumed the West was just going to run through everything this year, but I think we made some noise.”

It was more like an explosion.

The Eagles finished 28-4 for the second straight season, captured the Four Rivers Conference regular season and tournament championships, put together a 24-match winning streak and an unheard of 72-set winning streak heading into the state 4-A finals against the Hawks, one of three teams from the Catawba Shores 2-A/3-A/4-A Conference who were playing for a state championship.

UCA was one of just two teams battling for a state championship that didn’t get a No. 1 seed for regional action, with No. 5 Seaforth the other. Fourteen of the 16 No. 1 seeded teams from the two regions advanced to the title match.

The Eagles were actually in a good spot to win the title after they grabbed a 5-0 lead in the fifth and deciding game in the match. With a service error by Lake Norman Charter to begin Game 5 and two kills from Alyvia Spinks and one each from Caroline Way and Carly Rush, the Eagles were quickly up 5-0.

But a timeout by Hawks coach Bethany Kiley turned the tide.

“Mindset,” she said about what changed after the timeout when the Hawks outscored UCA 15-4 for the title. “We get in a rut sometimes. We’ve been working all season about not letting teams get on a roll. Sometimes they need that mental break to come in, take a deep breath and mentally reset to go back out there and they are really good at doing that.”

That they were as most valuable player London Stewart led the comeback. An 11-1 run put the Hawks in control and the closest UCA could get was 12-8.

“We just got so excited, which is not a bad thing, but we started seeing that we could really win this game and because of that, we let them come back,” Spinks said. “We looked into the future too much and not the present.”

The Eagles started very unlike the Eagles in set one, watching the Hawks extend an 11-9 lead to 17-9 with a six-point run. The Eagles were missing their trademark defensive play and that allowed LNC to grab the first game.

“The first set wasn’t really me,” said senior libero Sadie Upchurch. “I was overwhelmed by it, all of us were, but mostly me. I was thinking too much. But I had people around me telling me to be confident in yourself and I tried to listen to my team and listen to what they had to say to me, and after that it clicked. This was not me. I had to play like myself.”

Most of the Eagles struggled in that first set before quickly regrouping to resemble the team that had been so balanced and successful through the regular season and playoffs. Spinks, Rush, Way, Aly Dalton, Nyasia Wharton, Gracie Smith, Sydney Hayes and senior setter Emory Johnson started putting together point streaks and UCA extended a 10-7 lead to 17-9. They rolled to the win in the second set.

After seeing a 72-set winning streak snapped in Game 1, the first set the Eagles have lost since an Aug. 19 match with Union Pines, Kennell said he had no doubt his team would respond.

“I am around them every day,” Kennell said. “People don’t see them in practice. They don’t see them. You can watch something on film, but you can’t see what’s inside. This is a special group. We knew it would be a battle. I think they were ready for it, it just didn’t go our way.”

UCA used the same balanced attack in the third set for a 2-1 lead, but it was the Hawks who got out to a 10-4 lead in Game 4, closing it out with a 9-3 run.

That set the stage for the deciding game.

“We kind of executed the game plan really well,” Kennell said. “It was to take their middles out and they had a tough time getting to their middles. After the first set, I thought we did a really good job defensively, learning them and picking up on what they were doing.

“They are a good team. They won the state championship match for a reason. They earned it tonight.”

Johnson said she will miss this special team which accomplished special things.

“I am just so proud of us,” Johnson said. “This game doesn’t define us. I am really grateful. There aren’t many teams where you have 15 best friends, so I’m really grateful for all these girls. It’s such a great privilege to represent Uwharrie. 

“What you guys don’t see, especially with us three up here and half the team have been playing together since fourth or fifth grade. When you play with people and are with people day in and day out for that long, you start to love them and you don’t want to spend a day without them.”