JAMESTOWN — Ragsdale volleyball players only knew a day before their rivalry game with Metro 6A/7A Conference foe Southwest Guilford that a coaching change would occur.
At approximately 4 p.m. on Tuesday, about two hours before the match, they were informed that Hailey Adair, last year’s coach, would return to the bench as interim coach to fill in for the departed Michael Carnegie, who left for undisclosed reasons after guiding the Lady Tigers to a 5-6 record in his first season as their head coach.
“I think we were all anxious coming into today, just the unknown before we came to the game and then everything got settled,” senior Maddie Henning said. “I think going into the game, we just all wanted to have fun and just perform our best.”
Ragsdale (5-7, 2-4) lost to Southwest (9-8, 5-1) in three sets, each by a score of 25-16. Even in defeat, team leaders took away positives and said the morale is high despite the defeat.
“So there has been a lot of coaching changes recently and it’s really just helped our team come together as one,” senior Morgan Osborne said. “Compared to recent years, we’ve just been able to really stick together on and off the court, so we’ve grown closer as a team.
“I think with how hard it’s been to find a coach that we need and that will stick with us, it has helped us come together,” she added. “And rather than letting that tear us down, it just helps us bond together and meet each other so that we are stronger
on the court.”
In 2023, Adair took over after serving two seasons as junior varsity coach and varsity assistant and guided the Tigers to an improvement from 5-15 the previous year to 8-13 in year one, before finishing 7-15 in 2024 after a 6-0 start.
The team struggled to a 1-27 record in the Metro 4A Conference those two seasons and didn’t make the state playoffs in either year, but returning players had fond memories of Adair, who Osborne described as being calm and collected and never getting angry while still demonstrating investment.
“We were talking about it earlier,” said senior Emily Fisher. “It just brings back a lot of memories from last season and we had a lot of good times last season, so it’s been good to have that energy.”
Henning, a High Point Christian transfer, didn’t play for Adair last year but had positive feedback about how the coach did in her return.
“She was really good,” said Henning, a Catawba recruit. “She definitely has volleyball knowledge and I think just the positivity and it wasn’t a negative, toxic environment and that’s really just what we needed, especially today playing Southwest.”
Carnegie, a former Winston-Salem State assistant, was announced as the Tigers coach on April 30. His resume included success as a player for Florida International University and time playing for the Jamaica National Team, while additional coaching experience came with the Triad Elite Junior Olympic Volleyball Team and winning multiple championships with the High Point-based International Jammers.
With Carnegie, the Tigers began 4-2 overall before losing four of their last five before his departure.
“Last year, I don’t think our record reflected our playing and how well we played, but this year in conference, our record is already better than it was last season,” Fisher said. “Even stats were showing our growth and also, just our chemistry on the court and our bond together is so much better and you can just tell at practice and in games, even in school, it’s just such a better environment.”
This season, the team recognized improvement, even in losses, with Henning saying that a loss to Southeast Guilford on Aug. 20 was the team’s biggest highlight of the year. Ragsdale had lost 25-21, 25-13, 25-10 in a previous meeting against the Falcons. In the rematch six days later, Ragsdale showed fight when it rallied to win a third set, 27-25, despite losing the match, 3-1.
“I think that just even when the score doesn’t show how well we were playing, we are still, with these better teams, going longer rallies,” Osborne said. “We are still playing even if the score doesn’t show that, so that has definitely been a difference from last year to this year.”
The three leaders emphasized team bonding activities as a key ingredient. When asked what they’ve done to create that, the answer was simply: We like to go out to eat.
“I think that we’ve grown our trust with each other and we’ve been having a lot of fun,” Fisher said. “We’ve been laughing, bonding, doing team bonding outside of practice and games and it’s just been a lot of fun getting to know all of these girls.”
This year’s 11-player roster is comprised of nine seniors and two juniors. The 6-foot Henning had a team-high 106 kills on a 34.3 kill percentage entering Tuesday’s match. Fisher, a 5-foot-5 defensive specialist, had a team-leading 120 digs in 28 sets, while Osborne contributed in multiple ways, being second in kills (73), digs (81) and serve percentage (90.3) to go along with a team-high 29 aces.
The Tigers have eight matches remaining in the regular season, with all six conference games being rematches. They are currently in fifth place in the seven-team league and defeated sixth-place Dudley and seventh-place Smith in the first wave of conference matchups.
At 2-4, they trail Grimsley (5-0), Southwest, Page (4-2) and Western Guilford (3-2) in the conference race. Grimsley and Western were scheduled to face-off on Wednesday.
Henning, who is enrolling at Catawba in January, hopes to have fun in her last high school semester. Fisher and Osborne hope to leave a legacy of continued growth this year and help develop rising young players for a good future.
“We’ve seen a lot of growth since last season and I think we are heading in the right direction and I’m really excited to see how this year turns out,” Fisher said.
Bryant.roche@greensboro.com
@BRocheSports
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