Milton volleyball wins in 5 sets over Jay after Panthers 'go to the big guns' late in match

The Milton volleyball team huddled together following its five-set victory over Jay on Thursday, and head coach Jan Cupp excitedly held out her hands to her players.

Seven of her fingernails were painted a tealish-green – representing the Panthers’ seven previous wins leading up to their game against the Royals. One of those nails had already been painted earlier in this season at the hands of Jay, where Milton, again, won in five sets.

At the time, it was the Royals’ first loss of the season.

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And now, as Cupp held out her hands, one more finger – the eighth win, beating last season’s total – will be painted.

“I want both my hands to be painted,” Cupp said with a laugh. “(The players) didn’t catch on at first, then all of a sudden, of course, my captain, saw it. … I had two wins on there, and the players started picking that up.”

Milton’s eighth win of the season, its second against Jay, again went all five sets. The Panthers won 3-2, with set scores of 24-26, 26-24, 21-25, 25-18 and 15-11.

“I knew it was going to be a battle. … They can hit on the outside,” Cupp said. “We really tried to get our big middle (players) over there to cover that a lot, to try to keep (Jay) from putting (the ball) down on the other side.”

A battle it was, right from the start. Neither team could separate itself in the first set until Jay went on a small run toward the middle. Behind strong serving from Audrey Barnes, the Royals took a five-point advantage, 14-9, on four consecutive points.

That was until Milton matched the streak, and Harper Cooley whipped up a pair of aces to eventually take a 15-14 lead. Any time one team started to muster a larger lead, the opposition came right back with a run of its own.

But Morgan Barrow ended the first set with a tip over the net that was blocked by Milton, but went straight down onto the Panthers’ side of the net. Jay wound up winning, 26-24.

Milton wasn’t phased after going up 5-1 early in the set, again with strong serving from Cooley. After Jay clawed back, the teams traded points again. With Milton leading 10-7, Jay’s Ella Nelson went on a service run of six points to put the Royals up 13-10. Two of those serves were aces, and Aubreigh Nelson picked up a couple kills during the streak.

As the teams remained knotted throughout the set, Mya Waitman had two kills in three points to end the set, this time in favor of the Panthers, 26-24.

After gaining a lead early in the third set, 4-3, Jay never relinquished it. Ella Nelson went on a small run, with an ace, that put the Royals up by five points. While Milton tied it at 13, Jay eventually held on after Cooley hit a serve into the net.

Milton went on a run to begin the fourth set, going up 8-3. And in similar fashion to the third, the Panthers held on. Three kills in a row from Alexis Hawthorne, Rogers and Zariah Allen put Milton at set point. While Jay started a rally, Brooklyn Sorrells’ serve went long and Milton won the set 25-18.

Then Cupp had one message to her team: give the ball to Allen.

“We told them, ‘Feed her. Feed her,’” Cupp said.

Allen finished the set with six kills – five of which came during a 10-point stretch. The sixth? A story tale ending as she sent the ball down with authority in the middle of the court to seal the 15-11 set win, and the 3-2 match victory.

“You get to the end of the game, you want to finish it – you go to the big guns,” Cupp said of Allen.

Here are three takeaways from the matchup.

A host of hitters

Jay head coach Carey Locklin admittedly does not have a ton of height on her team this year. And it seemed that Milton took full advantage of it. Several hitters up front were able to lay down strong spikes – ones that either hit the ground with force or others that deflected off blocks from the Royals.

But Jay did have some good receptions from players like Ella Nelson and Barnes in that back row to keep things from getting out of hand.

“(Jay is) really good defensively,” Cupp said.

On Milton’s side of the ball, Rogers – who “has really been a key” for the Panthers, Cupp mentioned – Waitman, Hawthorne and Allen all brought some strength to the offense. Even if it wasn’t a booming spike, having strong awareness to even tip the ball or push it to an open space was crucial.

“I thought Mya stepped up,” Cupp said. “I’ve got hitters that come in big for us.”

While Allen’s name gets thrown around a lot, it was the fifth set where she came in clutch.

“We rely on (Allen) at the end of games, our tight games,” Cupp said.

That’s thanks to the smart play of setter Emma Messer – who found Allen several times in that sixth set. Messer, just a sophomore, is replacing some big shoes in Laila Manning, who graduated last year.

“I thought (Messer) did an awesome job tonight. She was getting passes,” Cupp said. “It wasn’t good at first, but she found a way to get it to her hitters, making it competitive on offense for us.”

Messer knew that she just had to get the ball to Allen during that fifth set. And clearly, it worked.

“I knew (Allen) was one of my strongest hitters,” Messer said. “Every ball that was possibly up, I needed to get it to her. I know she can hit it down, get a kill and help us lead to the win we just got.”

“It was all adrenaline at that point,” Allen said of her fifth-set dominance. “We communicate well. … Team bonding, things like that, all help.”

Overall improvements

After a 20-5 season in 2021, Cupp who was the head coach that season, served as assistant coach in 2022. The Panthers went 7-16 (0-3 in district play). Going into this season, with Cupp back at the helm, the Panthers’ main goal was to improve from last season.

And with the eighth win of the year, Milton has done just that.

“That’s our whole thing,” Cupp said. “And (we want) to get better as a team. Overall, we have gotten better every single match.”

Milton (8-6) returns to action on Saturday with a tournament at Crestview. The Panthers, in pool play, will compete against Baker, Arnold and Fort Walton Beach.

“(We need to) practice hard even though we won,” Allen said. “Push through the fight to win every other game we play. … Don’t be content.”

“I have a confident mindset. I feel like our team is really growing. From the beginning of the, we’ve been so much better,” Messer said. “We’re just so supportive of each other.”

Funda-mental

There’s two things that Locklin noted that contributed to Jay’s loss.

Partially, it was the amount of double hits called against the Royals during the contest. Jay had 14 double hits called, giving Milton several points to either extend a lead or end a run from the Royals.

The amount of calls forced an in-game fix, Locklin said.

“I wouldn’t say that’s why we lost, for sure,” she said. “But we had to adjust, getting the ball to our hitters based on that factor of the doubles.”

The main thing? A mental block. Given that this was the second time Milton and Jay went to five sets, Locklin said the Royals need to build confidence and “find a way to finish.” With short fifth sets – the winner only needing 15 points compared to the normal 25 like the first through fourth sets – a game can quickly be won or lost early in that final set.

Jay jumped out to an early lead, 3-0, before two- and three-point runs from Milton started to put the match out of reach.

“Like I told them (before the fifth set), it’s going to go quick. If you don’t believe that you can do it and finish it, that’s the outcome you’re going to get,” Locklin said. “I just told them, one point at a time. They have to work for every point. … The opponent has to earn their points. We gave (Milton) a lot of points.”

Jay (8-3) hosts Baker on Monday – looking to get over the mental hurdle.

“This is the same situation we were in with Milton when they came to our place. We went five (sets), and we could not find it in ourselves to finish it, and the confidence in ourselves to finish big games,” Locklin said. “They need to believe they can finish big games.”

Ben Grieco is a sports reporter for the Pensacola News Journal. He can be reached on X (@BenGriecoSports) and via email at BGrieco@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Milton volleyball defeats Jay, gets eighth win of 2023 season