CARL JUNCTION, Mo. — Watching the Carl Junction players leave the locker room for the last time in the 2020 season, you could tell the end of their journey was an emotional one.
Carl Junction dropped the opening set 25-18 to Willard before battling back to win the second and third sets 25-19, 25-10. The Tigers found their groove in the fourth set, earning a 25-19 win to force a fifth and final set. Willard started off fast and held off the Bulldogs 15-10 to advance to the quarterfinal round of the Class 4 state playoffs.
“They battled until the end,” Carl Junction coach Cheryl Sharples said. “I couldn’t have asked for much more out of them. They left it on the court, and that’s what we talked about needing to do—leave it all out there and see what happens.”
Carl Junction ends the year with a 24-7 record, earning a Class 4 District 11 title in the process.
“It’s been a great season,” Sharples said. “We’ve accomplished some things we hadn’t in the past. We got three wins over Ozark and Webb this year. We tied for third in the conference. I am just extremely proud of what they’ve done.”
The Bulldogs graduate seniors Salma Lewis and Jill Kennedy.
“Jill and Salma have had such a big impact on our program,” Sharples said. “They are such great kids and great leaders. They’ve helped change the culture in our program. They have won three district championships in four years. You can’t complain about that.”
Carl Junction looked out of sorts early in the opening set, with sloppy play and a lack of communication helping Willard jump out to a 12-4 lead following a six-point service run from Kindall Smithson.
“I thought we played a little timid in the first set,” Sharples said. “Salma was sick yesterday and didn’t get to practice with us, so you could tell she was still trying to acclimate herself a little bit. I think that was kind of in the back of the mind of all our kids. We talked about just building some momentum heading into that second set.”
Building momentum they did, as a kill from Destiny Buerge forced a sideout and a five-point service run from Jessa Hylton trimmed the Bulldogs’ deficit to 13-10. Hylton had a kill and two aces in the run, while Lewis added two kills as well.
Willard built the lead to 22-13 before Olivia Vediz came up with two aces during a late four-point run in service to bring Carl Junction to within five of the lead, 23-18, before the Tigers finished off the win.
Willard was in control of the second set in the early stages after a kill from Payton Van Veen gave the Tigers a 9-4 advantage. Lewis earned a kill to force a sideout into her service, where she added two aces before a kill from Hylton cut the Tigers’ lead to 9-8.
CJ went up 14-12 moments later after back-to-back kills from Hylton and Lewis, but Willard responded with a sideout kill from Van Veen and four-point service run from Taylor Crighton, aided by two more kills from Van Veen, put the Tigers on top 17-14.
Carl Junction answered back with 11 of the next 13 points to take the second set and even the match and one game each. Lewis had four kills in the final stretch, including the game-winning swing, while Kennedy and Logan Jones had two aces.
“We were playing really good defensively on top of the serving,” Sharples said. “We were also really aggressive at the net. That was key. In the first set, we were soft and were tipping a lot. In that second set, we started taking great swings.”
Carl Junction used an early 10-point service run from Lewis in the third set to put a stranglehold on the lead, 14-3. Lewis had two aces, while Hylton had four kills to highlight the run.
“That was kind of nice because you could breathe again a little bit,” Sharples said with a laugh. “Everything was so tight the rest of the way. It was nice to get that big run and build on that.”
Both teams traded sideouts until Carl Junction scored seven of eight points, including the last five of the set, to earn a 25-10 win to go up 2-1. Lewis had three kills in the final stages of the set, with Kylie Scott and Maggie Brown each coming away with blocks.
“We talked zoning in on them with our block a little bit, and we made some adjustments defensively,” Sharples said when asked how they took Willard out of system in the second and third sets.
Willard opened the fourth set on a 7-2 run before pushing the lead to 20-11 late off a four-point service run. Carl Junction used an attack error and two straight kills by Lewis to cut the margin to five, but a service error on the Bulldogs ended the rally, giving Willard a 25-19 win to tie the match at two sets each.
Willard controlled the early scoring in the fifth set, building a 13-5 advantage, highlighted by seven kills and an ace from Van Veen. A tip kill by Buerge forced a sideout, and Hylton came up with three straight kills to bring the score to 13-9. The teams traded sideouts from there to send Willard to the match win.
“They kind of jumped on us and took a couple of really good swings,” Sharples said. “We weren’t in system for a little bit. We made a turn, and we fought with all we could until the end.”
STATS
Lewis finished the match with a team-high 27 kills, four aces and 23 digs. Hylton had 18 kills and three aces, while Brown and five blocks and Scott four blocks. Vediz finished with 32 digs, while Logan Jones had 54 assists, 14 digs and three aces.
LEAVING A LEGACY
Lewis’ 27 kills against Willard gives her 1,227 for her career. She is currently Carl Junction’s all-time kill leader, and the only Bulldog to surpass 1,000 kills for her career. Adding to the list of her accomplishments, Lewis is 12th all-time for career kills in the state of Missouri.
RECORD SETTER
Jones, a sophomore, set a new single-game record for assists for Carl Junction in the loss. It is the second time she broke her own record from a year ago—43 assists against Springdale Har-Ber on Oct. 24. Jones finished with 49 assists against Ozark on Oct. 8.
“She does a great job of distributing the ball and putting our hitters in a great position to succeed,” Sharples said. “She continues to break her own records, and I’m sure that will happen again in the next couple of years.”
