After sweeping the conference regular season and tournament championships for the first time since 2022, the Cedar Ridge volleyball team placed three players on the All-Region 3 team.
Senior outside hitter Claire Hargett, freshman Dani Solomon and senior setter Mia Marty were all honored by the North Carolina Volleyball Coaches Association.
Solomon was one of only two freshmen honored in Region 3. The other was Middle Creek setter Leah Finger.
In addition, Cedar Ridge’s Koury May is a nominee for the NCVBCA Coach of the Year. In her first season with the Red Wolves, May led Cedar Ridge to the best start in school history by winning its first 17 matches. Cedar Ridge was the #1 ranked team in the 5A RPI rankings from wire-to-wire, getting five nonconference wins against teams that would capture their respective conference championships: two over Person, which went unbeaten in the Mid-Carolina; two over Grimsley, which went undefeated in the Metro; and one at East Chapel Hill, which tied Chapel Hill for the Tobacco Road championship.
Hargett became the all-time kills leader in school history against Durham School of the Arts on October 7, breaking the record held by Cameron Lloyd, who was a senior in 2022 when Hargett was a freshman. In addition, Hargett surpassed 1,000 career digs in the second round of the 5A State Playoffs against South Granville. Hargett started the season with 18 kills in the season-opener against Person on August 12 against Person, a 3-2 Red Wolf win in Hillsborough. No one knew it at the time, but it was a battle between two teams that would go on to reach the state quarterfinals and came very close to meeting in the regional championship match.
Hargett would register 20 kills in a win over Jordan on August 20, her season-high. She had nine double-doubles on the season. Hargett became the first player in school history to surpass 1,100 kills against Orange in the Big 7 Tournament semifinals on October 14. Hargett has committed to play at Division III Washington & Lee.
The arrival of Solomon, who played as an 8th grader at Discovery Charter School last year, took a lot of the attacking load off of Hargett’s plate. It led to a new dimension in Cedar Ridge’s attack that other teams simply couldn’t match most of the season.
Solomon’s impact was immediate. In her first high school match, she had 16 kills in the win over Person. A week later in her third match, she had 20 kills against Grimsley, a 7A team, in Greensboro. It was a 3-2 Red Wolf win. In the first meeting against Seaforth, Solomon shined with a season-high 26 kills in a 3-1 Cedar Ridge victory, the first of four matches against the Red Wolves and the Hawks.
Solomon would also have 21 kills in a win over Person on September 29, the Rockets only home loss in the regular season.
Marty surpassed 1,400 career assists this season, finishing with 699 assists on the year. Her average of 7.5 assists per set was a career-best. Marty had seven double-doubles this season, including 17 digs and 41 assists against Carrboro on October 2, which was the Red Wolves only regular season loss. Her season-best was 44 assists against Orange on October 14 in the Big 7 Tournament semifinals. Against Seaforth in the Big 7 Tournament championship match, Marty finished with 28 assists, six digs and four kills.
Marty also had 47 aces. In the second match of the season against Southeast Alamance, she finished with five aces. Her season-best was six aces against Durham School of the Arts on October 7. Marty was a two-year starter who also saw action in the state playoffs her freshman year when she stepped in for an injured Julie Altieri against Richlands. She had 27 assists against Western Alamance in the 3rd round of the 5A State Playoffs, the final win of her Cedar Ridge career.
