Panther Creek claims first Southwest Wake volleyball title, beats Fuquay-Varina

Panther Creek’s volleyball players had a price to pay when the school hired Holly Fong last year.

Her standards were set high, and not meeting them meant players had to run the bleachers at 8 a.m. the next day or another form of discipline.

A year later came the payoff.

In a riveting winner-take-all, five-match victory Thursday at Fuquay-Varina, Panther Creek claimed its first volleyball conference title in school history. The Catamounts prevailed against the Bengals 27-25, 20-25, 25-19, 21-25 and 15-10 for the Southwest Wake Athletic Conference crown.

“I think all the drills and all the keys that she gave us to become the conference champs have helped over time,” said Panther Creek senior Caitlyn Della, a Wake Forest recruit who had a game-high 19 kills.

It’s the first time since 2007 since a team other than Apex and Green Hope was won the SWAC championship – or Tri-9 and Tri-8 as it was previously known as – in volleyball.

“They’ve worked really hard. They understand that it’s not about the wins and losses necessarily but about the way they’re playing the game and the intensity and the passion,” Fong said.

The passion was high in the fifth set, which Fuquay-Varina had just forced with a 25-21 win in game four.

“They game-planned amazing, they made big plays when they needed to, leaders stepped up, all those things are what it took,” Fong said. “And they didn’t play for themselves, they played for the program.”

Panther Creek (17-4, 14-2) jumped out to a 6-1 lead in the decisive fifth game, which proved pivotal. Fuquay-Varina (17-3, 13-3) rallied to cut the lead to 10-8, but the Catamounts scored five of the last seven to win and quiet a raucous crowd.

With the SWAC title on the line, Panther Creek took time to adjust to the atmosphere. It trailed in the first set 23-17 before rattling off 10 of the last 12 points to win 27-25.

Emily Maggio (12 kills) was a steadying force for the Catamounts. She came up with a timely kill or ace to turn momentum back to Panther Creek.

“It was a lot of pressure. Hearing that crowd, at first, it was overwhelming,” Della said.

Fuquay-Varina coach Jeff Pagel couldn’t have been more proud of his team.

Morgan Sonnendecker had a team-high 14 kills while twin sister Maddie had 12.

“We played our butts off, we played hard,” Pagel said. “They’re a really well-coached team, they’re dynamic on defense, on offense they have two really good swingers on the outside that you have to play defense on differently each time.”

When he took over the Bengals program five years ago, the idea of Fuquay-Varina getting a chance to play for the conference championship in the season finale was still far away.

Pagel made the league crown his goal, and the Bengals have increased or kept their win total the same in five straight seasons (12-10, 13-9, 16-7, 16-6, 17-3).

It’s the highest finish in the league since the Bengals became a 4A school in 2001 and the most wins in school history – with the playoffs still to go.

“I’m proud of my girls. Even though we lost, this is a great season we still have a lot to look forward to in the playoffs, so they need to keep their heads up,” Pagel said.

“This year, the difference was, we found a good balance between the hard work and dedication that we built the foundation of program on, but then we brought back the ‘Let’s have fun, let’s go play.’ We found that balance and it worked for us this year. We just came up a few points short against Panther Creek.”

This story was originally published October 15, 2015 at 11:14 PM with the headline "Panther Creek claims first Southwest Wake volleyball title, beats Fuquay-Varina."