Mosley can't finish off 2-6A volleyball rival Niceville

LYNN HAVEN — Mosley needed two points to put away Niceville in a District 2-6A volleyball match on Tuesday. Then the Dolphins let off the accelerator, hoped for the best and finished with a defeat.

Niceville rallied from a 2-1 deficit to edge Mosley 25-21, 20-25, 21-25, 27-25, 15-12 at the Jim Redfern Gymnasium. The teams split the regular-season series 1-1 and are tied atop the district at 6-1. A coin flip likely will decide the top seed in the district tournament.

Mosley fought back to win the second and third sets after Niceville took the early momentum in front of a partisan Dolphins’ crowd complete with a pep band. The Dolphins led 23-19 in the fourth set on a service point from Deanna Canfield.

Canfield led the charge with 26 kills. She had the lion’s share of the kills, however, which became a problem for Mosley. Instead of finishing off the match, Mosley became timid on the front line, allowing Niceville’s powerful hitters to have extra chances to put points on the scoreboard.

They did that and more.

“We didn’t hit the ball well at the end of the fourth set or in the fifth set,” Mosley coach Steve Canfield said. “We have to attack the ball. We can’t send free balls across the net against Niceville and expect to win.”

Niceville’s Monica Johnson was the benefactor of many of those free balls. She had four kills after Mosley went ahead by four to tie the set 25-25. She scored two points from the service line to finish Mosley in the fourth set.

She had five kills and a block in the fifth set to stake Niceville to a 7-4 lead. The Eagles ran out to a 14-7 lead before Mosley rallied.

After a Niceville hit out of bounds, Lindsey Richardson served four straight points to pull Mosley within 14-12. Shelby Russell’s kill was just inside the line to end the match.

Coach Canfield thought the ball was out, but he admitted if Mosley would have taken care of its business a set earlier then the extra stanza, which pushed the match to nearly three hours long, wouldn’t have been necessary.

“We’re going to have to get the whole team to step up,” Canfield said. “We didn’t put balls away, you have to put the ball away.”

Mosley’s stat line showed how Niceville was the aggressor most of the match. It was a digfest for the Dolphins, with Richardson (30), Canfield (23), Cayce May (21), Amanda Singletary (25) and Lauren Corbin (28) with 20 or more digs apiece.

Mosley fell to 19-3 overall with its first loss against a 6A team this season. The Dolphins are at Fort Walton Beach on Thursday.

Mosley won the JV match 25-23, 12-25, 15-12.