PANAMA CITY BEACH — After two straight wins and a district championship, it appeared that Arnold may have turned the tables in its previously one-sided rivalry with Mosley.
However, when it counted the most in Tuesday night’s 1-5A regional semifinal match, it was the Dolphins (21-8) who proved to be the class of Bay County, winning in four sets to advance to Saturday’s regional final against Bishop Kenny. Arnold finished 22-7.
It’s the first trip to the Final Eight for Mosley in 15 seasons, with coach Michelle Mask saying after the match that she didn’t know when the season started if this Dolphins’ squad had it in them.
“I knew going in that Arnold was going to have a fantastic program this year,” Mask said. “I didn’t know if we were going to be good enough to make it this far. None of us really expected to do this, so to see us do that and make it to the regional finals is very special.”
The Dolphins were paced by their talented junior hitter Kenley Adams, who had a match-high 16 kills — her last ending the match — to go with 22 digs, five blocks, and 14 assists. She stressed that the victory was about a lot more than her performance.
“It was an awesome team effort,” Adams said. “We had huge motivation (after the previous two losses to Arnold), so we all worked our butts off to come back and beat them. As a team, we all wanted it really bad and knew we had to play great as a team to keep our season going and that was the difference in the win.”
Adams was brilliant in a 25-20 first set win for Mosley with five kills and started off the second set with four straight service points to put the Dolphins out to an early lead.
Arnold fought back to take a 13-10 lead after Casey Justice came up with an ace and followed with one of her 13 kills, but Mosley stormed back by winning eight of the next 10 points to take an 18-15 edge on Annie Wallace’s kill.
A service point by Kathryn Richardson closed it out 25-20 to put the Dolphins a set away from a sweep, but the Marlins fought back in the third, jumping out to a 10-3 lead and never trailing at any point in a 25-20 victory.
The fourth set was all Mosley, with the Dolphins running off a string of 15 out of 19 points to take a commanding 18-9 lead after a pair of big blocks by Jordyn Simmons and another kill by Adams.
Sarah Robertson briefly stemmed the tide with a kill for Arnold, but the Marlins never got closer the remainder of the set and the Dolphins closed it out with a dominant 25-12 win.
“I don’t think we were very sharp or anywhere near what we needed to be to win, and Mosley was,” Arnold coach Sheryl Heninger lamented after the match. “Sometimes you’re on and sometimes you’re not and you’ve got to find a way to work through that and we didn’t.”
Robertson finished with 12 kills and Gabby Crowley led the Marlins with 22 assists.
Wallace added 10 kills and four blocks for Mosley, with Simmons contributing six blocks, Heidi Nix six kills, 11 digs, and 22 assists, and Elizabeth Wingrove had five blocks and 10 digs.
As impressive as Adams’ final line was, Mask said the Dolphins needed all of those contributions from her teammates in order to get the win.
“Kenley is solid. I believe in her and have faith in her, but we knew we had to have everyone contribute if we were going to win,” Mask said. “Everyone had goals coming in and they all reached them.”
A big performance was needed for Mosley to topple a team that had taken six of the last seven sets in the rivalry during the last two matches: a 3-1 Senior Night victory Oct. 6 and a 3-0 District 1 title game win Oct. 23.
What ultimately proved the difference, according to Mask, was the level of urgency that the Dolphins played with.
“They knew this game was our season. (In the previous matches), they knew they would have another day,” Mask said. “We knew tonight that we had to play our best if we wanted to keep playing.”
The Dolphins will head to Jacksonville on Saturday to take on Bishop Kenny for a spot in the state semifinals Nov. 13 in Kissimmee.
CLASS 1A
South Walton downed visiting Chipley 3-2, winning 25-17, 25-19, 23-25, 23-25, 16-14. Host Sneads eliminated Milton Central 25-18, 25-5, 25-12, visiting Blountstown ousted Laurel Hill 25-13, 25-22, 25-17, and host Baker defeated Liberty County 21-25, 25-10, 25-17, 25-20.