Tonight Head Coach Cindy Edwards will put a bow on the 2024-2025 Volleyball 🏐 season as she hosts her annual team banquet at the High School 🏫.

It’s been a fun filled three months and now it will officially be over. Senior Aza Petty and Assistant Coach Maleah Neely ➕ Junior Varsity Coach Jason Petty will each be enjoying ♥ one final curtain call. Leny Richter will be heading back to Germany 🇩🇪 soon after her time here as an Exchange Student and team member.

Everyone else in the room figures to be back next season as Coach continues her pursuit of 500 victories on The Hill. Some have moved on to Basketball 🏀 but know that Volleyball 🏐 has joined the list of sports that compete almost, if not year around.

Travel Ball is a HUGE part of any successful VB program and CCHS is proof of this with their efforts. New people will have to step up into Coaching positions and younger players will look to become leaders on the floor and in the lockeroom.

Aza will have to be replaced by committee with Callie Harris, Laiken Burnett and Ali Wright being a few of the young Ladies that together could try to be the Caretakers of the team. Miss Petty played quite the roll this season in regards to leadership and team unity. The next group will look to follow in her footsteps 👣.

The past few years CCHS has been led by VB players that have moved on to play in College. Kalee Bunn, Cordy Gardner, Madison Stockner and Alyssa Ervin (if not for Hoops). One never knows when the next name will get added to that list but know that Aza being on the court with each of them made them better and this season she led by example.

On a personal note 📝, I would like to say Thank You to Maleah Neely one more time for all of her effort in regards to helping me create the Varsity Player Profiles. Her verbiage made them Pop and knowing how much effort 👏 goes into writing ✍ from the ❤, Thank You almost falls short of being enough…

Also, Thank You to Allen Worrell 🙏 for running the Volleyball stories and to Patti Goins for providing pictures 📷 and finally to Nikki Heflin for her assistance with the JV pics, to Kevin DeHaven for his efforts in the Gym on match nights, his lovely Bride 👰 for being a team player with the Clock at the Home matches.

To Ron Cochran, Velvet Creed Leonard and Dakota / Eddie Walls for all of their help with the team Poster.

To Marion and Shelia Harris for their efforts putting the matches on their Facebook page.

Kudos to the dedicated Parents for their efforts in chasing their Daughters all over the place including twice to Alleghany.

Thank You to Mama Petty for all of your kindness 💕 and Tootsie Pops!

Let’s wrap it all up by Thanking the Coach who makes all of this work – Cindy Edwards and her plucky Sidekick Trenton Miller. The Weddles helping with Varsity and Skyler Petty helping with her Dad’s JV team.

Just a few of the 1,000 or so VB pics on the phone 📱 from this season.

Hopefully we captured some memories about an undersized but overachieving team and their Legendary Coach…..

Carroll County Volleyball 🏐, its just a Family 👪 Thing…..

Photo 📷 Credit – Patti Goins

The Hill – Carroll County High School returned to The Hill Monday night to host Pulaski County and the Lady 👩 Cavaliers swept the Lady Cougars 3-0 (25-11, 25-12, 25-20) in front of an energetic crowd.

The non-district victory moved Head Coach Cindy Edwards team to 6-5 and 3-1 in the Three Rivers District. The team will have a small window to celebrate though as they return to action tonight at Patrick County as they finish up a three match in four days stretch.

The combination of the busy stretch and having a few nicked up players led Coach Edwards to mix and match her lineup card from start to finish.

” I thought it was a great chance to play everyone tonight,” said Edwards. ” At the same time not play some that need to rest their injuries.”

Aza Petty led the way with another double- double as the Senior finished with 12 Kills and 12 Diggs. Junior Callie Harris flirted with joining Petty in the most difficult of ways, finishing up with 11 Diggs and a match high 8 Aces. The duo shared something more than stats against PCHS, they were listening to their long-time Coach offer encouragement to her younger players throughout the night. Something that they could appreciate from their early playing days.

One of those younger players is Freshman Raylee Goins. Goins reached double figures in Diggs with 11 and added four Kills and three Aces. Junior floor General Laiken Burnett also recorded a double-double with a match high 24 assists and 15 Diggs. Burnett was impressive with her setting in large part because she was tasked to pass to more teammates than normal.

Carroll County wasted little time in taking control of the opening set as Ali Wright scored a Kill and followed it with two Aces to push the lead out to 11-3. Pulaski County pulled within 14-9 but Harris followed a Burnett 2-ball Kill with three straight Aces to push the lead back to a comfortable place.

Goins sealed the deal in the opening set with two of her Aces and two more Kills from Wright, finishing up at 25-11. The Lady 👩 Cavaliers closed out on a 7-0 run.

Wright is on the list of dinged up players and she would see limited action 🎬 the rest of the match. This created extended playing time for fellow Sophomores Maddie Hyatt and Faith Nicholson.

Hyatt finished two early Kills in the second set and Nicholson added two Aces during the 11-3 opening run of the second set. Petty and Harris took over the next stretch with 3 Kills and 3 Aces respectively, pushing the lead out to 16-5.

Hyatt added two more Kills near the end of the 25-12 victory and then Coach Edwards began to raise the bar for some of her youngsters.

All season long the topic about this year’s team has been how young they were before losing Corrie Delp to an ankle injury. The total number of Varsity years for the squad was in single digits. Yes, Petty and Harris have been playing the game since they learned how to walk but a number of the players are still getting their Varsity feet wet.

Yes, the team is incredibly young and Edwards has been pushing buttons and pulling strings for almost four decades now. A second tag needs to be added to the one about being young and its that they are very, very coachable. So when Edwards started Coaching her younger players more noticeably last night, both Harris and Petty had to be thinking about their early days.

On to the third and what would be the final set, Carroll County pushed their Third Set winning streak out to five straight matches. After dropping the third set to both Marion and Alleghany, the team has not fallen short since.

Pulaski County did not leave the Gymnasium quietly though. Their Junior Varsity team became more engaged during the final set and the Cougars clearly fed off the energy.

PCHS led 7-3, then 9-4 and finally 10-8 before a barrage of Aces would eventually give the lead back to Carroll County. Burnett and Harris picked up two apiece during the decisive run.

The play of the match came at 23-20 Carroll County. Goins went well to her right for a point saving Digg and the ball 🚀 rocketed across the court to Petty, where she reached across her body to start the one armed Kill that set up Match Point. Carroll County closed out the night at 25-20.

Very Young and Very Coachable.

The Junior Varsity team battled their counterparts from start to finish Monday night. Pulaski County won the match 2-0 (25-23, 25-22) but the Lady Cavaliers were knocking at the door 🚪 both sets.

Both team return to action tonight over in Stuart versus Patrick County.

__________________________

Borrowing from the WNBA, where they close out game stories from time to time by showing A-List people who attended the game…

Football 🏈 – Mason Crockett was seated right behind Press Row and a number of his teammates were up in the Student section.

Basketball 🏀 – Senior Ethan Richardson was in the building and did a nice job holding the 🎤🎙🎤 and talking about their upcoming season.

Allen “Vern” Worrell of the Carroll News was taking photographs.

Tammy Quesenberry finished off another busy, busy day by taking in some Volleyball 🏐.

Kevin DeHaven is an A-Lister but does it count if you have to be there? Let’s give his nod to Mrs.D

Finally, there was this Lady 👩

I also want to acknowledge the Prayer circle 🔵 🙏 that both teams formed after the Match.