Panthers Turns it on Late to defeat Campbell, Earns Automatic Bid to NCAA tournament

 Panthers Turns it on Late to defeat Campbell, Earns Automatic Bid to NCAA tournament

BY: Harris Eisenberg

HIGH POINT, N.C.- The High Point Panthers earned an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament as they defeated Campbell in four sets.

The matchup featured the top two teams in the Big South. Thursday was the first time the two foes had faced each other since the 2019 Big South Tournament semifinal when Campbell ended  High Point’s season. The Panthers got their revenge on the Fighting Camels to remain undefeated at 13-0 for the season.

The Panthers split the first two sets with Campbell but won sets three 25-22 and set four 25-20 to secure the victory. High Point was able to tame the Campbell attack in the final two sets. The Fighting Camels hit just .037% in the final two sets and hit .110% throughout the entire match.

High Point was led by redshirt sophomore Madison Smith who paced the Panther attack with 16 kills. It was a bounce back match for the Ohio native as she had just 11 combined kills in two matchups with Charleston Southern last week.

Campbell tried to counter with sophomore Lailah Green who led Campbell with 16 kills of her own. It was not enough to tame the Panther defense which was led by  Abby Bottomley who had 29 DIG for the second match in a row. Gabrielle Idlebird was a force at the net as she had a career-high eight blocks.

 

High Point got off to a slow start in the first two sets. Campbell was leading 7-3 and out-hitting High Point .417% to .111%  in set one before High Point head coach Ryan Meek used his first timeout. The two teams would come out of the timeout going back and forth. But High Point closed set one on a 9-2 run, led by Smith who had six kills in the opening set.

Campbell took advantage of High Point’s serving struggles in set two. The Panthers had seven service errors in the second frame. Mailah Green had five kills in the frame to tie things at 1 going into the break.

But the Panthers were able to take advantage of Campbell's sloppy play in the final two sets. The Fighting Camels recorded 16 attacking errors in the final two sets after having just 11 in the first two frames. The Panthers also put together an 8-2 run in set four as five different players recorded kills over that span. It made the score 19-13 and put the set and the match out of reach.

High Point looks for the sweep of Campbell tomorrow at Millis Center at 2 P.M.