By Mike London
mlondon@salisburypost.com
CHINA GROVE ó Mix nine hungry seniors with one of the state’s top volleyball coaches, stir gently, sprinkle in serious sweat, and you’ve got a recipe for success.
So far, Carson ó yes, Carson ó has been a nearly perfect storm. The Cougars are 6-0 and have dropped just one game while tackling a challenging non-conference schedule, plus NPC opponents Statesville and East Rowan.
“We all feel good inside right now, but we’re not settling for where we are,” Carson senior Shanna Stewart said. “Our coach (Kelan Rogers) is tough and he keeps pushing us, but we like the results. We don’t mind at all.”
The Cougars handled East 25-8, 25-15, 25-19 in the Carson gym on Tuesday. Not that Rogers, who built one of the state’s best programs at West Davidson, was anywhere close to satisfied.
“All year we’ve been mentally clicking and working hard to win,” he said. “Today, we played well in the first game, but we let it fall away in the second game and let them stay in there all the way in the third game. It was like it was too easy and we lost our intensity. That’s the first time this year that’s happened.”
Rogers, an East Rowan graduate, made a habit of dominating at West Davidson where he posted an eye-popping record of 428-114. His teams had claimed 16 straight league championships when he left to accept the Carson job this summer.
Trish Hester coached Carson’s first three volleyball teams, squads that all were competitive at a school that has been searching for an athletic breakthrough since the doors opened.
When Hester, an assistant principal, was transferred to West Rowan Middle for this school year she left behind girls she’d put her heart and soul into making better.
Hester is pleased Rogers was available to replace her, and she was one of several hundred fired-up Cougar boosters cheering on Tuesday.
Yes, several hundred. Carson fans are understandably excited about having an unbeaten team in any sport.
The school trophy case is vacant, waiting for its first NPC championship trophy. Maybe it’ll be in volleyball.
“This has been like a dream,” Carson senior Breckin Settlemyer said. “When we beat Statesville it felt so good because they knocked us out of that last playoff spot last year. It’s great to have nine seniors, and it’s nice to finally be a big, bad senior.”
With so many four-year varsity players, Carson has unusual experience and depth. It has a blend of height (Settlemyer), hustle (libero Sarah Marshall), savvy (Taylor Whitley and Shanna Stewart) and quick athletes (Jennifer Hough and Marissa Sellers).
Not that Rogers ever singles out anyone, and it’s hard to argue with his track record.
“I think it’s been a collective team effort, 15 people working together,” he said.
Last year’s 3A state champ North Iredell is in the NPC. It graduated a lot of standouts, but it still swept previously undefeated South Rowan on Tuesday and has lost only once this year.
West Iredell, which swept West Rowan on Tuesday, is still undefeated so the NPC is going to be as rugged as ever.
“It feels very good to be where we are right now, but we know we can’t stop and we know there’s a long way to go,” said Marshall, one of the county’s top defensive specialists. “There are some big challenges out there ahead of us, but we’re looking forward to those big challenges.”
Three years ago, the challenge in front of Hester was starting a volleyball program from scratch. She planted the tree. Now it’s bearing fruit.
A lot of these same Cougars have taken their lumps in basketball, but they’ve usually done OK in softball as well as volleyball.
The difference is that they’ve made the playoffs in softball but never in volleyball.
“The seniors are the sticks and stones and the cement of this program,” Stewart said. “We were there that first day, and we’ve kept working. I know we’re surprising people right now because we’ve never had this kind of record, but we plan to keep right on surprising people.”
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NOTE: Carson’s jayvees topped East 25-13, 25-14.