STARKVILLE — Kensley Woolbright raced back. All the way back.
New Hope’s freshman libero pulled up at the back wall of the court at the Newell-Grissom Building in Starkville and waited for the volleyball to reach her.
But Woolbright had gone as far as she could go. So had New Hope.
The ball, which had been deflected by a Trojan teammate, sailed over her head and out of play. Woolbright put her hands on her head as Long Beach, the Trojans’ opponent in Thursday’s MHSAA Class 5A semifinal, celebrated its fourth straight point, one that clinched a back-and-forth second set at 26-24.
The Bearcats proceeded to take a tightly contested third set, ending the best season in New Hope history and leaving the Trojans wondering what could have been.
“I think most of us are feeling sad and down because we should have won,” junior Daylyn Nettles said. “We left our heart out there. But the season’s over.”
The 3-0 loss with set scores of 25-12, 26-24 and 25-23 capped a season in which the Trojans made the second round for the first time, let alone the state semifinals — without a single senior on the roster.
“We’re not losing anybody,” coach Allison Woolbright said. “We’ll all be back.”
Woolbright said her team gave “over 110 percent” Thursday and was pleased with her players’ effort in the second and third sets against a talented — and unfamiliar — opponent. New Hope had never seen Long Beach play.
“I think if we had actually been able to have seen them, we would have had a little bit better idea of what to expect, and we could have prepared a little bit more in practice,” Woolbright said. “When you get to this level, that’s just not how it is. We’re playing teams from down there at the coast that we’ve never played, that we’ll never play in regular season. You just have to do the best you can.”
Woolbright thinks her team did that and more Thursday, regardless of the outcome.
“Nobody really expected us to be here, and we achieved goals that were unimaginable at the beginning of the season,” she said.
Now, Nettles knows expectations have changed within the program. She’ll be one of the few senior leaders for the Trojans, and she plans to bring them right back to the final four.
And with how near New Hope was to a victory Thursday, Nettles can’t wait for a return trip.
“To be that close, you really want to win,” she said. “You want to try to push your team as hard as you can to get that game-winning point. But you win some, and you lose some.”
Nettles knows how much fight the Trojans showed, and without a win to show for it, that’ll have to be enough.
“We played hard and fought ’til the end,” she said.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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