Spartans volleyball remains undefeated in region standings with win over hopi

October 16, 2024 (Appeared on the Arizona Daily Sun website)

Northland Prep Academy are on a three-win-streak and continue to be undefeated (5-0) in 2A North conference after defeating the Hopi Bruins (0-3) 25-6, 25-12, 25-9 in a home match on Tuesday night.

With the win, the Spartans ranking moved up one from last week, placing them at No. 7 overall with a 10-2 record. 

NPA utilized aggressive serves that kept Hopi from breaking 10 points and allowed for the Spartans to pull away in both the first and third set. Through serves, outside hitter Zillah Wildblood-Crawford gained 16 points with six aces and Setter Makenna Murphy gained 15 points with eight aces. 

Murphy went on a small serving run late in the third set taking NPA to 24-9 before the ball went short and caught on the net. The final point of match came from a serve-receive pass straight to Murphy, who set Wildblood-Crawford on the right side for the kill. Similar to their previous game, she finished with 13 kills tonight.

“We played clean and sharp volleyball tonight,” said Head Coach Corie Murphy.

With four remaining in-season matches and the conference tournament approaching, Murphy said that the team took this game as an opportunity to work on a couple things in preparation, including, a faster offense and free-ball passing.

“We are looking to sharpen our skills and be on top of our game right now. We are looking to speed up our offense and we are looking for revenge against St. Johns on Thursday,” said Murphy.

The Spartans are on the road for Thursday’s game where they will take on the St. Johns Redskins, who currently sit eighth-ranked overall and are the only other undefeated team in the conference (5-0).

NPA played the Redskins earlier this month but fell short 2-3 in sets. In the previous matchup between the two, there were totals of 13 serve and 31 attacking errors from NPA while, St. Johns only had five serve and 18 attacking errors. The Spartans are looking to change that this time around - despite not having the home court advantage- they said they are ready and welcome the challenge.

“We’ve played them before, so we know what we have to do. One of those things is aggressive serving. Last time, we had quite a few serve errors,” said Wildblood-Crawford.

“I’m excited. I think it’ll be hard, but we can definitely do it,” said Makenna Murphy.

The match starts at 6:30 pm Oct. 17 at St. Johns High School and is also available on NFHS network.