An evening that had all the earmarks of a momentous upset for the Arendell Parrott volleyball team instead ended in heartbreak for the Patriots.
Parrott shocked perennial conference power Cary Christian Academy (10-0 NCISAA Eastern Plains) by winning the first two sets 25-21 and 26-24 before dropping the last three 15-25, 19-25 and 10-15 to fall to 8-6 overall and 6-4 in league play Thursday.
“After we won the first two, I knew we needed to try to close it out in the third,” first-year Patriots coach Jason Wade said. “When they won the third set, the momentum really started to shift to them.”
Despite the loss, Wade was impressed by the marked improvement of his team. Parrott dropped a laugher in straight sets at Cary earlier in the season in a match that saw the Knights jump out to a 17-1 lead in their first set.
“I’m not big on moral victories, but I’m taking tonight as one,” Wade said.
The moral victory looked every bit the part of an actual victory for two sets. The Patriots jumped out to a quick 6-1 lead on five straight service points from Brianna Casey. They were fended off a late charge by the Knights and closed with a 7-0 run, spurred by six straight service points from Cary’s Abby Fitzgerald, who entered the match for an injured Charlotte Snead.
The second set was more of the same, as the Patriots jumped out to an early lead, held off another Knights’ rally and prevailed with a 26-24 set win. The play of the set came with the Patriots trailing 22-20 and Parrott’s Susana Sualevai at the net. After a long rally, Sualevai’s kill – one of eight in the match – snapped a 7-0 Cary run and gave the serve back to the Patriots, who scored five of the last seven points in the set to take a 2-0 lead in the match.
“They have some powerhouse hitters,” Cary coach Lesley White said, “and we were not able to read them right away to set the blocks we needed to shut them down. They are a high energy team and they are fun to play.”
The Sualevai sisters – Susana and Cheyenne – accounted for 22 kills and six blocks, with Cheyenne notching 14 and five, respectively, while Kaleigh Steelman led the Patriots with 18 assists.
In the end, the Knights had too many weapons of their own. Faith Jezioranski finished with 16 assists, and the overwhelming majority of those assists went to uber-hitter Adria Johnson, who had 33 kills on the evening.
“She is very reliable for us,” White said of Johnson, “and she was a great leader on the court tonight.”
White – whose team seized momentum with a 10-2 start in the third set and never relinquished it – saved her strongest praise for the much-improved Patriots.
“Our conference has not always given us the best competition,” White said. “That wasn’t the case at all tonight. It’s exciting to see our conference beginning to have some real competition.”