BY DANIEL SCHMIDT
THE OBSERVER
OPELIKA — Opelika High School’s volleyball team battled back to take a set from Enterprise High School, but the season ended for the Lady Bulldogs (22-10) on Wednesday, Oct. 21, with a 3-1 loss to the Lady Wildcats (35-7) in the AHSAA Class 6A South Regional tournament at the Cramton Bowl Multiplex.
Enterprise jumped out to a 2-0 lead with set wins of 25-11 and 25-17. Opelika responded by taking the third set 25-20, but the Lady Wildcats closed out the match with a 25-11 win in the fourth set.
Opelika head coach Robin Roberts said the Lady Bulldogs knew what they were up against and played with nothing to lose.
“I think they did a phenomenal job of stepping on that floor and giving it all they’ve got,” Roberts said. “We know Enterprise is a good program. We know they had beaten Auburn twice and that we were going to have to literally step on that floor and defend the entire match, and I thought we did a great job of forcing them to make errors and staying in it.”
Roberts singled out the team’s back-row play.
“The back row hustle, the DSs and libero, I thought they put it all out there and really helped keep us in the game,” Roberts said.
Opelika entered the season with plenty of unknowns after graduating a large senior class, but the Lady Bulldogs grew into a 22-win team. Roberts said that growth came from the entire roster rather than any one player.
“We lost so many seniors last year, and we had no idea what kind of team we were going to put on the floor,” Roberts said. “To watch them all grow individually and together — I don’t think we could have accumulated the record we did with just one person. There’s six people on the court at a time. One player cannot be the one person that wins the matches for you. We were just able to all grow together, and I think that was just huge for the team to be able to figure out how to win and then keep winning.”
Roberts pointed to a road win over Lee-Scott Academy as the moment that changed Opelika’s season.
“They’re a good program. They’ve had our number,” Roberts said. “I think that really changed the trajectory of our season, because it showed that we had the confidence that we needed to beat teams around the area.”
Roberts said the team’s chemistry is what will stand out most in the years to come.
“I told them yesterday, I will never forget this team,” Roberts said. “We’ve never had a team that wanted to win, could execute how to win and truly love each other and be happy for each other. I truly felt that from every player on the court, everybody on the bench, that they wanted their teammate to do well and wanted to celebrate them when they did. It just made us happy as coaches to watch them and watch them get better.”
Roberts credited Opelika’s four seniors — Lauren Skipper, Alaina Thomas, Addison Bryan and Ava Daniels — with renewing the joy of coaching.
“They were so coachable, and they led in a way that their teammates wanted to follow them,” Roberts said. “They unified the group of players together, and if you don’t have that, you can’t win matches. So they’re a special group to me.”
Though the season ended short of where Opelika hoped, Roberts said the effort was there from start to finish.
“We’ve worked hard since June — 20 weeks of effort and play and really working together as a team to hit one goal and to win,” Roberts said. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t beat Enterprise, but I was very proud of the team that stepped on that floor. We competed, and that’s what we wanted out of them.”
