Jeff Linville | The Mount Airy News

North Surry defeated Forbush without the services of hitter Kristina Rumplasch, seen getting a kill against East Surry. The senior sprained an ankle playing basketball and was unavailable Tuesday.

slideshow

North Surry overcame the loss of a player and a sloppy start to beat a feisty Forbush team 3-0 Monday.

The Lady Falcons came into the match with double-digit losses on the season, but played better than that against the Lady Greyhounds, trying for another 20-win season under Coach Shane Slate.

The Hounds started off with some poor serving and mental errors. They led just 12-11 with six of the Falcons’ 11 points coming from missed serves and net violations.

North pulled together and posted a 9-1 run that drew a Forbush timeout at 21-12.

The Falcons drew closer after that, but the Hounds won 25-20.

The second set featured a couple of great hustle plays to energize the home crowd. At 5-3, the Hounds had a dig bounce sideways off the court, but Molly Martin chased it down and hit it backward to her teammates to keep the rally going.

Two points later, a similar play saw Abby Golding chasing down a one-handed dig and saving it to her teammates.

Those plays helped lift North from 5-3 to 15-4 as Forbush called a timeout.

The Falcons put together a few points, three times finding a soft spot on the floor by blooping over the block attempt of Erin March.

Still, North kept a comfortable lead to a 25-12 win.

In the third set, Forbush led 2-1 before the Hounds put up seven straight points behind Alex Cooke’s serve. The lead grew to 20-12 before the Falcons put together a push to close to 25-20.

The match lifted the Hounds to 20 wins on the season. In each of the three previous seasons, the Hounds have posted 30 or more.

When asked what contributed to the Lady Greyhounds’ consistent success in dominating volleyball, Slate said, “ We have kids who put in the time to be good players, in-season and offseason.”

In 2009, North was 33-0, then 34-2 in 2010 and 30-3 last year. That makes the team 117-6 since this group of seniors were freshmen.

The team’s three seniors (Maddison Hawks, Molly Martin and Kristina Rumplasch) will be honored on Thursday for Senior Night against Bishop McGuinness.

One of those seniors, Rumplasch, sprained an ankle playing basketball recently. Rumplasch is an all-conference player in basketball and one of the leading hitters on the front line.

Picking up the slack, the Hounds had three players in double digits in kills.

Molly Martin had 11 kills, while Malaya Johnson and Taylor Hill had 10 each.

Bailey Culler set up the front line with 33 assists.

Slate said he looks for his team to register at least 10 assists per set, and the team did that tonight.

Johnson and Erin March led the team with six blocks, while Hill added three.

Hawks led the team with 11 digs, including a few diving saves. Martin had 10.

After those early misses with serve, the Hounds were much better at the line.

Slate said he believed the serves were fairly aggressive and also were accurate in finding soft spots in the Forbush defense.

Culler hit one serve so softly that it barely cleared the net and surprised the middle hitter, who was unable to hit the ball back up in the air.

Martin was perfect at the line, getting all 11 serves in play while mixing up the velocity. Johnson was 18-19 with two aces.

Before Thursday’s Senior Night, the Hounds travel to West Stokes today.