Harnett Central’s varsity volleyball team celebrated its Senior Night on Thursday by clinching a share of the All American 3-A/4-A Conference regular season championship with a 3-0 win over visiting conference and Harnett County rival Triton. Individual set scores were 25-17, 25-23 and 25-13.

“We’ve been telling the girls, you take that one night against Terry Sanford (a 3-0 home loss Oct. 6) where you didn’t compete and now you’ve got to play harder,” said Harnett Central coach Ashley Gaines. “Because now everybody thinks you’ve been beat once, they’re going to continue to beat up on you. We told them after Terry Sanford that that can’t become a trend for us. We want to have a postseason. We want to have fun. And we need to win from here on out. Tonight, they had that mentality. They came out ready to compete. They came out slow, but took care of business and did what we needed to do.”

Triton coach Wendy Simmons said the third set has been a consistent struggle for the Hawks this season.

“I think we have third set something,” Simmons said. “I’m going to have to come up with a name for that and figure out what we need to do differently to start a third set better. If I go back and look at all of our matches, I think the third set has been something that has been undeniably the worst set.”

Despite the loss, Simmons was proud to see Gaines, her daughter, who played for her on multiple conference championship teams at Triton, win her first conference title as a coach.

“I’m very proud of her,” Simmons said. “I hope things continue to go well for her, as long as I don’t have to play her again. Because then I would want to beat her.”

Senior Ivanna Jones had a double-double, with 11 kills, one block and 10 digs, junior Lily Gervase had nine kills and two blocks, senior Sinai Avalos-Beltran had eight kills and senior KeErica Snead had seven kills to lead the Trojans (14-7, 13-1 AAC) at the net.

“We have been practicing hard at practice about that,” Gaines said. “Setters have been working with certain hitters at certain times and giving them the ball, making that connection. I think we got away from that against Terry Sanford and because we weren’t competing, we got a little bit out of character. I told them that when you compete, it’s really important that you stay in character, because when you do that, then everything else falls into place.”

Junior Carlie Love also had strong performance, recording a double-double, with 21 assists and 10 digs.

“We work hard every day at practice,” Gaines said. “They’re either serving a certain number of serves in two minutes and 30 seconds or they’re hitting spots in two minutes and 30 seconds. And if they don’t finish, we have a penalty to run for that. So, they know how big serves are and it’s just concentration. I feel confident to put all 12 of my girls back there to serve and get us going somehow someway.”

Gervase had two aces on 14 service points and Love had eight aces on 13 service points to also lead the Trojans at the service line.

Senior Carlee Harrell had four kills, 15 assists, five digs and one ace on four service points. Senior Mikaela Goss had one assist and four digs and held serve for two points. Avalos-Beltran had six digs and two aces on four service points. Snead had three digs and two aces on four service points. Ashley Bliven had one dig and one ace on two service points. Jones had one ace on two service points.

Sophomore Carleigh Hemby had 10 kills, sophomore Olivia Godwin had five kills and one block, freshman Chyna Massey had four kills and a season- and career-high six blocks and senior Reagan Bradham had 23 assists to lead the Hawks (10-12, 9-5).

“Any time you’ve got young players stepping up like that and doing what they’re supposed to do, it’s always something to look forward to,” Simmons said. “(Massey) has worked hard and has come a long way since middle school. I look forward to seeing what she’s going to do the next three years.”

Grace Wilson had three kills and 10 digs and held serve for 10 points. Gracy-Lynn Norris had three kills and two digs. Ava Blackman had one assist and four digs. Makayla Norris had 10 digs. Bradham had eight digs and held serve for three points. Hemby had five digs and three aces on eight service points. Godwin had four digs and one ace on two service points. Massey had three digs and held serve for two points. Emma Stanley had two digs.

Prior to the match, Harnett Central honored five seniors: Mikaela Goss, Ivanna Jones, KeErica Snead, Sinai Avalos-Beltran and Carlee Harrell.

Triton held an early 10-5 lead in the first set before Central rallied with a 6-1 run to tie it 11-11. With the score tied 17-17, a Snead kill, assisted by Harrell, sparked an 8-0 Central run, capped by a Jones kill, assisted by Love, to close out the set.

Central held set point, at 24-18, in the second set when Triton rallied with five unanswered to cut the lead to one. But a Gervase block ended the set.

Central opened the third set with back-to-back Gervase kills, one assisted by Goss and one assisted by Love, and a big serving run from Love to start on a 9-0 run. Love held serve for eight points, including five aces during that run. Central led by at least nine the rest of the set and finished the match on a kill from Snead, assisted by Love.

Harnett Central finished the regular season in a first-place tie with Terry Sanford (13-5, 13-1), but will not know who receives the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament until Saturday, as the two teams will draw for seeding.

“We don’t need to settle,” Gaines said. “We talk about that in between sets, especially when we have a good lead. I told them we’re at a really good place, peaking. You’re supposed to peak at the end of your season and we’re at a good way going up right now. I think we needed that knock in the mouth with Terry Sanford to really change our mindset of what we’re doing. They’re working hard at practice and they’re competing together and that carries over into the postseason.”

Triton will have the No. 3 seed, having finished one win ahead of No. 4 seed Pine Forest (11-12, 8-6).

“We’ve definitely got to do a better job on the serve receive,” Simmons said. “That was a thorn in our side. And, like I said, definitely need to figure out that third set.”

The conference tournament begins Monday.