Riley Hedrick sets for Katy Falkowski.

Brian Wilhite photo.

 

The Cougars. Brian Wilhite photo.

 

By Mike London

mike.london@salisburypost.com

Third in a series of Rowan volleyball reports …

CHINA GROVE — One of the state’s all-time best at teaching his favorite sport, Carson volleyball coach Kelan Rogers entered the 2024 season with 753 career victories.

The majority of that total came in his two decades at West Davidson, but his 325 wins at Carson (when this season began) is nothing to sneeze at. He’s been vigorously coaching the Cougars since 2009.

A graduate of East Rowan and N.C. State, Rogers taught high school science for 30 years. He’s now a relatively young and spry retiree from the school system, but he’s still passionate about coaching volleyball at the middle school and high school levels.

The goal that drives Roger is simple — to return the Cougars to the sort of glory days they experienced in 2012 and 2013 when they were the best in the west in 3A. Both of those teams finished as regional champs and state runners-up to Cardinal Gibbons. Those two Carson teams are still the only Rowan County teams ever to play in a state championship match.

Carson hasn’t claimed a conference regular-season championship since 2018 when it finished tied with West Rowan. Carson actually had some losing seasons during the COVID era, and the Cougars still have a long way to go before they resemble the powerhouses of 2012 and 2013.

But Carson (9-4 after winning at North Stanly on Thursday) has a good squad this season and will be a contender in the South Piedmont Conference. Carson’s biggest victory to date was against a tall, good East Rowan squad.

“We’re a year older, but we’re still young, lots of juniors,” Rogers said. “We’ve got 18 girls on the roster and we’ve had close matches where we’ve played all 18. This is the most depth we’ve had in a long time. The last few years if someone got hurt, we had to change everything we were doing. Now we don’t have to worry about that.”

The leader for the Cougars is senior libero Kaylee Thonen, a four-year varsity player. Thonen had 184 digs — that’s the art of scraping the ball off the floor — as a freshman, 222 as a sophomore and jumped to 439 as a junior when she was second in the South Piedmont Conference in that category.

Thonen surpassed 1,000 career digs this season, was recognized for that feat last week and still has a lot more in her future. She had 26 digs in Tuesday’s win at Mount Pleasant. She got 29 more on Thursday at North Stanly. Any time you get 20 digs, it’s one heck of a night.

Besides digging, Thonen is critical for Cougars on both ends of the serve.

She led the SPC in service aces in 2023 with 78 and she is the person the Cougars want to handle serve receive and make that bump pass to the setter. She handled a team-high 562 serves last season.

“She’s played really well for us for a long time,” Rogers said. “She’s a phenomenal defensive player, Beyond that, she’s a great leader.”

Thonen leads by example, but she’s also the Cougars’ primary encourager, slapping a teammate on the back after a strong hit, putting an arm around a young player who has just made a mistake.

Carson’s other seniors are Maggie Cross, a defensive specialist with setting experience, middle hitter Peyton Holler, Avery Breitzman and Caroline Snow.

The Cougars’ power lies in a deep junior class, girls who were champions for Rogers at Southeast Middle three years ago.

Reese Joyner leads the junior class. She had 271 kills in 2023 to rank fourth in the SPC. A 5-foot-10 track high jumper, she can be unstoppable as an outside hitter when she gets on a roll. She also can dig efficiently, so she won’t leave the floor much.

Junior Katy Falkowski, an energetic 5-foot-9 player, can get kills from the middle or outside. She had 200 kills last season to rank eighth in the league and added a team-leading 31 blocks.

Junior Alana Herring is an active defensive specialist and a strong server.

Riley Wilhite is a junior middle hitter. She had 11 kills on Thursday, third on the team, and she’ll get her share of blocks. Carson is getting more blocks than it did last season.

The junior class also includes Hailey Safrit (third on the team in kills in 2023), Kylee Hancock, Chloe Webster, Hailey Moose, Ariel Keaton and Madison Tesch.

The varsity sophomores, who also were champions for Rogers at Southeast Middle, are Rylee Hederick, Caylee Snow, Tasean Perkins and Piper Thonen, Kaylee’s sister.

Hedrick was outstanding as a freshman setter on the varsity, She was fourth in the SPC with 566 assists. She had 50 assists in Thursday’s four-set win at North Stanly.

Perkins, who had nine kills on Thursday, has bounce, while the younger Thonen, a right side hitter, has power. They could be consistent contributors in the kills column.

“We’ve got about eight girls who can put it down consistently,” Rogers said. “So I don’t know that we’ll have any one girl who puts up gaudy stats.”

But Joyner might. She had 23 kills on Thursday.

West Rowan and South Rowan have been really good in recent seasons, and the other county schools have had their good teams and their shining moments over the years.  But a high percentage of the county’s volleyball history has been written in the blue and orange of its youngest program — Carson.

The Cougars aren’t tall, but they’ll have a chance to add more history and a few more plaques to the trophy case.