Leopards Top Sharks, End District Title Drought

By CHRIS BERNHARDT JR.
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BROOKSVILLE – For the first time in a decade, Hernando High’s volleyball team collected a district championship trophy.

The Leopards hosted county-rival Nature Coast in the finale of the District 4A-8 Tournament on Thursday night. Top-seeded Hernando looked the part, taking control early and finishing things off after a slight stumble, knocking out the third-seed Sharks in four games, 25-17, 25-21, 18-25, 25-14.

With that victory, the Leopards earned their first district crown since 2014 and an automatic berth into regionals.

“It was awesome,” Hernando head coach Robin Bailey said. “They’ve worked really hard. Got seven seniors that are graduating. It means a lot. These girls work hard. Every day, even when there’s a hurricane or school is out, whatever. They wanted to work
out. They wanted to run. They came in early sometimes. They really wanted it.”

The Leopards (18-3) pulled away late in each of the first two games. Leading 15-14 in the first, they forced a side-out then rattled off five straight points with Brooke Hart serving to make it 21-14. The senior setter Hart would end up flicking the ball over the net for the game-winning point.

In the second game, the Sharks (14-9) cut their deficit to 17-16 on a kill by Jalena Hathorn. But Kaiya Ward responded for Hernando with three straight kills of her own and the Leopards would soon close it out on a Charity Blevins kill to give themselves a 2-0 edge in the match.

Nature Coast, though, did go down quietly. After getting out in front to a quick 5-1 advantage, the Sharks continued to stave off Hernando comebacks and led 17-13 on a kill by Addison Carpenter. It became 23-18 on a kill from Hathorn and Amanda Tirado served two aces to force a fourth game. Hathorn had five of her nine kills in the third and Tirado had two of her 10.

“I think that we always talk about when you go up 2-0 it’s easy to kind of mentally relax a little bit, and that’s when you can sneak one in if you’re the team that’s down 2-0,” Nature Coast head coach Emily Gore said. “And we were able to do that. But then we just couldn’t hold on to it in the fourth.”

Starting off that fourth game Hernando could have been a bit on the ropes considering Ward was not in the lineup. The team’s leader in kills, the senior was on the sidelines trying to work through a pre-existing shoulder injury.

Yet the Leopards stormed out a 4-0 edge and never looked back. Ward would eventually check back in and even ended up serving the final two points of the match. The last came on a kill by Blevins, who finished with 16.

“It was a tough game for sure,” Ward said. “A couple of injuries. But we pulled through in the end. I’m really proud of this team […] It’s (the shoulder) hurting a lot. But I’m pretty good at pushing through. Just had to take a second to calm down in the bathroom. Coach Bailey asked me if I was good to go back in. I said yes. She let me go in and I’m doing good.”

Despite the injury, Ward ended up with 20 kills on the night, bringing her season total to 329. Having spent four years in the program, this night provided quite the payoff.

“Just being smart, being loud. We’ve been wanting this for a while. It’s been a few years since we’ve won a district championship,” Ward said. “We’ve been ready. We’ve been training very, very hard and pulled through.”

Being the third seed, the Sharks did not receive a first-round bye and were playing their third match in as many days. “Hernando is a great team. We knew it would be tough when we came in here,” Gore said. “They’ve had a great season. They’ve got some good players this year. It was kind of their year.”

“But I thought the girls fought. I thought we did some really good things tonight. I’m proud of our team. I don’t think most people expected us to be here because we kind of had an up-and-down season a little bit. I think fatigue kind of set in at the end.”

Aside from Ward and Blevins, the Leopards got big contributions from Hart with 30 assists and 23 digs, as well as libero Carlie Grant with 30 digs. They’ll hope to get more strong play moving on regionals, also for the first time since 2014.

“We’ll work on some stuff Monday. Take a little break this weekend,” Bailey said. “This is the first time we’ve been this far in a long time. These seniors deserve it.”