For the second straight season, the varsity volleyball match between Midway and visiting rival Triton went all the way to five sets. Also for the second straight year, it was the Hawks that came away with a win. Individual set scores were 20-25, 25-22, 26-24, 12-25 and 15-6.

The win also avenges a 3-0 Triton home loss to Midway on Aug. 27. Midway and Triton have split season series for the past two seasons, with the road team winning each of the four matches.

“It’s always good to beat somebody after they beat you,” said Triton coach Wendy Simmons. “We still need to work on when you’re up two sets, let’s finish this match. But we could have gone the other way with it in that fifth set and just kept digging ourselves deeper and deeper, but I felt like they came out strong. We started a different server (Leah Brannon had been Triton’s initial server in the other sets, but Maddie Stephens opened the fifth set) and it just panned out for us. They missed a lot of serves in that fifth set, and we took advantage of it.”

Errors were costly for Midway, particularly at the service line, where the Raiders missed a total of 14 serves.

“That’s something we’ve got to work on: consistency,” said Midway coach Brandy Wrench. “We’ve got to work on staying on top every set. We’ll always have that one set where we get behind from the beginning. That’s something we’ve worked on not doing, but we have not achieved that goal yet. Overall, our serves killed us. We had too many serve errors. You can’t do that in a game.”

Junior Bethany Norris had 12 kills and two blocks and senior Evie Pollard had a double-double, with 11 kills and 10 digs, to lead the Hawks (6-7) at the net.

Senior Tyler Grace Gamblin also recorded a double-double, with 26 assists and 14 digs, before leaving with an injury late in the contest.

Senior Breigh Hobbs led Triton on defense and at the service line, with 27 digs and four aces on 10 service points.

Leah Brannon had four kills and 14 digs and held serve for seven points. Breonna McNeill had four kills, one dig and one ace on five service points. Hobbs had two kills and six assists. Gamblin had one kill, two blocks and one ace. Gracyn Slaughter had one kill and 17 digs and held serve for two points. Norris had two digs and held serve for seven points. Maddie Stephens had two digs and held serve for five points. Madeline Scott had two digs and held serve for three points. Chelby Pascale had one dig and one ace.

A pair of seniors led the Raiders (8-4). Caitlyn Holland had a triple-double, with 14 kills, 15 assists, 13 digs and one ace on eight service points, and Makayla Chavis had 10 kills and four digs.

Junior Makenzi Hudson, with three kills and seven blocks, was also a strong contributor for Midway.

“Makenzi Hudson played real big on that front line,” Wrench said. “Huge blocking. Makayla Chavis had some really good spots. Caitlyn had some really good spots.”

Allison Belflowers had nine kills, one block and three digs and held serve for one point. Jordan Wallum had four kills, four assists, one block, 11 digs and one ace on four service points. Sydney Williams had two kills, 12 assists and eight digs and held serve for seven points. Emma Clark had two kills, one assist and two digs. Chloe Baggett had one kill and one dig. Maranda Byrd had six assists, 11 digs and three aces on 12 service points. Natalie McPhail had one assist, six digs and two aces on 14 service points.

After Midway took the first set, Triton won the next two to take a 2-1 lead before the Raiders won the fourth set to force the decisive fifth set.

Triton jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the fifth set, but a critical moment for both sides came during the rally with the Hawks leading 2-0.

On the Triton side, at the end of the point, Gamblin dropped to the floor and had to be helped off of the court because of an apparent ankle injury. In addition to losing a senior captain, the injury also forced the Hawks to change their offensive scheme to a 5-1, with Hobbs as the lone setter, rather than Hobbs and Gamblin sharing the role.

“When Tyler got hurt, I know I’ve got Breigh and she can pick up the setting,” Simmons said. “They’ve both been sharing it, but I decided to try a 5-1. We’ve been working on that for a few days in practice and I think it’s going to be the best thing that we need to do for the team this year.

“Sometimes (reaction to an injury) can go one way or another, but I felt like they didn’t let it hurt. If anything, it probably fired them up more and they wanted to do well with her out.”

On the Midway side, Holland initially looked to have earned a Midway point with a kill, but the up referee said she had committed a net violation, a call the Raiders strongly disagreed with, particularly as Gamblin had grabbed the net to slow her fall when she went to the floor injured.

“We started out with two hitting errors, which already got into our heads,” Wrench said. “Then Caitlyn makes a huge play on the net and they call her in the net when she wasn’t. That really kind of changed our whole motive, because we were mad. We were angry. We just got that point and they took it away from us. And that wasn’t the only situation that happened that kind of got in our heads and we let them play and we just kept digging ourselves a hole. We got mad and we just kept getting angrier about things instead of trying to change our momentum and change our thought process. That one play at the net, I think, was 100 percent the game-changer.”

Triton finished strong, dominating the fifth set, with help from 10 Midway errors, including three serve errors. A Hobbs ace and a Midway error ended the match.

Triton is at home against Harnett County and Tri-County Six 3-A Conference rival Western Harnett (0-9) and Midway travels to unbeaten Sampson County and East-Central 2-A Conference rival Clinton (10-0) on Tuesday.