Best regular season since 2022 sends volleyball on five game winning streak into the postseason.
The Eagles grabbed the victory against the Newberry Wolves in four sets and will host UVA Wise in the SAC quarterfinals following a 14-4 conference record.
| Final | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | T |
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16 | 19 | 25 | 21 | 1 |
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25 | 25 | 22 | 25 | 3 |
VIDEO: Highlights from Newberry
VIDEO: Raychel Ehlers Interview
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. - The Eagles grabbed the victory against the Newberry Wolves in four sets and will host UVA Wise in the SAC quarterfinals following a 14-4 conference record.
A challenging four set battle ended with a few intense intense final points that saw three different Eagles in double digit kills and wholesome senior night moments to remember. With the win, Carson-Newman grabs their 23rd win of 2025 and finishes the SAC regular season at 14-4.
The Eagles took down the Wolves with a score of 3-1 (22-16, 25-19, 25-22, and 25-21). With a good battle in the fourth set, Newberry was clawing to stay in the match with so many postseason implications at play. Following the loss, it was announced that Newberry slipped out of the top eight in the conference in tiebreaker scenarios and will not compete in the postseason. They wrap up their season at 6-12 in league play.
"Really proud of this team's composure, which has grown so much from the beginning of the season. It's definitely a game of point swings and different levels of energy. And we did a pretty good job at just staying consistent," said Cat Collins.
Carson-Newman has had their best season since the Eagles went 27-6 in 2022 and will host UVA Wise for their quarterfinal match on Tuesday as the four seed.
In set one, the Eagles had things figured out. Following an initial back-and-fourth scoring in the first six points, Carson Newman used a seven point run at the hand of Addie Smith who landed four service aces in that stretch to go up 9-3. From there, the Wolves didn't score more than two times in a row, with Annie Dziczkowski and Maddie Hurst spraying kills at the Newberry defense from all fronts. With those two attackers notching six kills a piece, plus two big kills from Grace Akard on her senior night, the Eagles would win set one 25-16. C-N hit .586 in the first set and collected 16 digs as a team.
Set two was tied through 9 points when the Eagles began to pull ahead. Three kills in a row from Emerson Ahsmuhs boosted the eagles to 11-9 lead, and timely attack errors for the Wolves extended the Eagles lead. The Wolves did a good job fighting back into the set though, with kills from Madison Watson and Evie Paalman to pull ahead 18-17. Bella Cardello and Blair Cherry combined to wreak havoc on the net, and two big blocks would help end the set on Smith's seventh ace of the night.
Newberry wasn't going to let their season slip away without a fight. Jana Price checked into the match for the first time in set three and made an impact in the third set. Both her and Paalman collected five kills each for Newberry, and seven errors for C-N didn't assist them in their pursuit to sweep the Wolves. Despite this, C-N and NC were tied 22-22 before Price landed two in a row and the Eagles made an error to give Newberry the set 25-22. The Eagles had their lowest hitting percentage of the night in set three, with a .180 clip. Ahsmuhs, Dziczkowski and Hurst all landed at least four kills in the third to send them all above double digits.
"It really was just the defense. They changed it quite a bit, changed their blocking scheme a little bit, but really just changed their backcourt defense a lot. So it took us a little bit to adapt to that, which was definitely uncomfortable for us. So it's something we had to work through," said Collins.
Newberry came out with the same speed in set four, grabbing a 4-1 lead. They would maintain the lead until the tail end of the fourth frame, when the Eagles got four sideouts in a row off kills from Ahsmuhs and Hurst. Trinity Hafey would keep up the Eagles tough serving with an ace that put C-N ahead 19-18. Newberry would take a timeout and fire two back to tip the scales toward the Wolves 20-19 and cause an Eagles timeout. Hurst came out of the timeout ready to close the door, and did so with a punctuating kill to take the match.
Hurst was the kill leader on the floor with 22 kills and hitting a school record single game match high .677. She made just one error on 31 swings. The previous record was set earlier in the season by Dziczkowski. This is Hurst's fifth game in a row with 10 or more kills. Ahmuhs followed her with 17 kills and Dziczkowski notched 15.
"It definitely makes my job very easy, makes our team's job very easy to know that we always have one of them in the front row. And, it makes players job easy to know that we always have someone that's gonna score for us. That creates a lot of confidence in our team and trust in our team," said Collins.
Trinity Hafey was the leader on defense by a long shot, with 22 digs that contributed to a team 62 digs mark. Raychel Ehlers was the other Eagle in double digit digs with 10. Cardello was a wall on the net that helped the defense with seven blocks while Blair Cherry contributed four blocks to help the Eagles to eight total.
Cherry also dished out 52 assists, which was her fourth game this season with 50+ assists. Smith helped a C-N team to 11 total service aces with 7 herself.
Carson-Newman will host the UVA Wise Cavaliers on Tuesday, a team that they just beat last Tuesday. The Eagles grabbed the season sweep against the Cavaliers and have never lost in the history of the series. No matter what happens in the tournament, C-N is ranked 4th in the region and should make the NCAA regional tournament no matter what happens in the SAC postseason.
"We have a few things on defense we want to work through, just so we're more comfortable and we can adapt quicker on offense too. But otherwise, just continuing to be the best as we can be and continue to work on who we are."
UVA Wise and Carson-Newman are scheduled for first serve at 7:00 PM on Tuesday, November 18th.
Team Stats
Newberry
| Game Statistics | Newberry | Carson-Newman |
|---|---|---|
| Hitting % | .244 | .310 |
| Blocks | 8.0 | 8.0 |
| Digs | 49 | 62 |
| Aces | 2 | 11 |
