For the first time this year, Cedar Ridge volleyball was pressed into a bounce back match.
The Red Wolves suffered its first loss of the season to Carrboro last Thursday and didn’t have an easy follow-up with a trip to East Chapel Hill for a nonconference match on Monday night.
After dropping the opening set to the Wildcats, the Red Wolves regained its standard form to earn its fourth win over a team from a higher classification this year.
Senior Claire Hargett finished with 12 kills while middle blocker Kayla Stoll had eight kills and four blocks as the Red Wolves defeated the Wildcats 3-1 on scores of 23-25, 25-14, 25-16, 25-22 at Wildcats Gymnasium.
Senior Mia Marty finished with 30 assists and ten digs. Senior libero Sydnee Tapper led the Red Wolves with 12 digs.
East Chapel Hill, currently in first place in the 6A/5A Tobacco Road Conference, fell to 10-8 overall. Sophomore Cameron Bublitz led the Wildcats with 13 kills.
East Chapel HIll’s Austin Harris scored on set point to end the opening frame, the third straight set that Cedar Ridge lost.
Cedar Ridge took control of the second set with a 6-1 run to take a 16-9 lead, closed by a kill by Ellamarie Perel assisted by Marty. The Red Wolves closed the set with five straight points.
Senior Emory Williams notched three aces in the third set. Stoll had a block to tie the set at 10-100, which sparked a 9-3 Cedar Ridge run. Stoll had an ace as the Red Wolves pulled away. Williams added two aces before Stoll closed out the set when she spiked down a lollipop over the net on set point.
East led for most of the fifth set behind five kills from sophomore middle blocker Maggie Jewell. Stoll tied the set at 17-17 off another unassisted kill. Freshman Dani Solomon earned her second block of the night to give the Red Wolves its first lead of the fourth set since the opening point, but Cedar Ridge wasn’t in the clear. The score would be tied three more times before Perel put the Red Wolves ahead with a spike over the middle. Addilyn Jackson delivered a key block to vault the Red Wolves ahed 23-21. Hargett closed out the night with a kill on match point.
Following the win over the Wildcats, Cedar Ridge traveled back home to easily sweep Durham School of the Arts at Red Wolves Gymnasium on Tuesday night. With the win, the Red Wolves officially clinched the #1 seed for next week’s Big 7 Conference Tournament. More importantly, they will be the #1 seed from the Big 7 Conference going into the 5A State Tournament. It improves Cedar Ridge’s chances of being the top overall seed in the East Region for the state tournament, meaning they will have home court advantage throughout the playoffs.
Currently, Cedar Ridge has the #1 RPI in the 5A Classification.
The Red Wolves defeated the Bulldogs on scores of 25-6, 25-5, 25-9. Cedar Ridge improved to 19-1 overall, 10-1 in the Big 7 Conference.
Hargett finished with seven kills, putting her career total at 1,059 kills. She is four away from the all-time record of 1,063, held by Cameron Lloyd, who graduated in 2023. Lloyd is now a libero with the Bucknell volleyball team.
Solomon added seven kills for the Red Wolves. Stoll and Perel each registered five kills. Freshman Kaitlyn Dixon came in for ten assists, while Marty registered 16 assists and six digs.
It’s the fifth time in six years that Cedar Ridge has claimed a share of a conference championship. Last year, the Red Wolves tied Orange for the Central Conference title with identical 10-2 league records.
Cedar Ridge won the outright Big 8 Conference championship in 2020 and the outright Central Conference titles in 2021 and 2022. The Red Wolves will claim the Big 7 Conference championship outright with a win over South Granville on Thursday night in Hillsborough.
