Woodmont Volleyball Bests NMB in Five Sets for 5A Div 2 State Title, First Since 1979
Woodmont volleyball bests NMB in five sets for 5A Division 2 state title, first school state crown since 1979
By WORTHY EVANS
HSSR Contributing Writer
Columbia- The Woodmont volleyball team may have been the underdog in facing defending 5A Division 2 defending champion North Myrtle Beach, but the Wildcats were playing without pressure.
Woodmont took the Chiefs to five sets at Dreher High School Thursday night, and when sophomore outside hitter Mallory Mizell slammed a kill shot into the middle of the North Myrtle Beach court for the 15th point of set 5, she was quickly buried in a pile of blue-uniformed teammates in front of the net.
The final hit clinched the Wildcats’ 3-2 victory over the Chiefs, who barely won the first set and dropped the second and third sets before winning the fourth to force the deciding set.
“I told them, the pressure is not on us, the pressure is on the other team,” Woodmont head coach Haleigh Horgan said. “We’ve never been here. And for them to come back and fight through five sets, it was brilliant.”
The win also the school’s first state championship since 1979.
Woodmont got off to a hot start in the match, winning the first four points and eventually taking a 6-1 lead in the first set. North Myrtle Beach, led by senior outside hitter Clara Cloninger, eventually worked their way out of the deficit. The Chiefs battled to a 24-24 stalemate and won the first set 27-25.
The Wildcats could have faltered, but instead kept the pressure on North Myrtle Beach throughout the second and third sets. Besides Mizell, senior hitter Aubrie Walker and junior middle blocker Kendall Cobb began delivering kills and blocks along the net.
Woodmont won the second set 25-21, but in the third set the Wildcats got more effective in blocking and spiking along the net, building a 10-4 lead early in the set and closing it out with back-to-back kills from Cobb for a 25-18 win.
“She has been something else this season,” Horgan said of Cobb. “That was a really big answer for us this season, setting the middle and getting them (opponents) off of our outsides so our outsides could open up. I’m really big on establishing those middles and then opening up the net, and they did just that.”
North Myrtle Beach won the first four points of the fourth set and held on to win 25-20, which evened the score at 2-2.
“It was just about grit and resilience and competing,” Chiefs head coach Jenn Loeswick said. “Our seniors came out on fire early on in that set. I just told them to go out and compete, that’s all you can control. You can’t control the win-loss, you can’t control the points, but you can work hard, have fun, be a good teammate.”
Both teams battled for an advantage in the fifth set. The Chiefs had a slight advantage with a 13-11 lead following Lily Loeswick’s and Madison Johnson’s unanswered block that landed in the Woodmont court.
Horgan called a timeout after that point.
“I said ‘trust your training,’” she said. “I’m going to be honest, my team has prayed over the season and at that last time out we prayed. I told them trust in your training, be calm, and we prayed just for the calm. It definitely was answered.”
On the next point, Cloninger’s serve was out, cutting the Chiefs’ lead to 13-12.
Woodmont server Samantha Willis hit the ball in play, and Cobb tied the game at 13 on a kill.
Willis hit the ball in play again, and Mizell’s kill set Woodmont up for the match point. After a short volley, Mizell took flight near the center of the net and dropped the ball into an open space on the Chief’s side for the win.
This year’s state championship run began last year, when Woodmont went 31-5 but fell out in the third round of the playoffs. Horgan said the culture took root in a team that went 1-14 in 2020.
“Last year we had great seniors, and we wanted to change the culture,” Horgan said. “I said you’ve got to trust me, you’ve got to trust the culture, and it just bled over into this year. It was beautiful. My seniors Aubrie and Lauren (Smith) are captains and they embodied exactly what I wanted, and my returners came back and wanted the exact same thing. They’re all playing at high-level clubs and that’s important, but it’s just the trust in me, the trust in their teammates and the trust in their training that they can do the job.”
The loss after such a hard-fought game came hard for the Chiefs, but Loeswick reminded the team, “I know this hurts a little bit, but after that hurt, make sure to not forget what a great season we had, what an incredible match this was,” she told the team. “This group has a huge place in my heart. They played with so much heart and battled. They played for each other all the time. They played with grit and determination. If you’re going to go out, this was the one you want to go out with.”
