Edmondson, Smith named to All-Conference volleyball team

ROCKINGHAM — Earlier in the week, two players on the Richmond Senior High School volleyball team were named to the 2024 All-Sandhills Athletic Conference roster.

At the conclusion of the regular season, SAC president and Union Pines athletic director Chad Hill released the full 18-player team.

Selected by the SAC’s head coaches, representing the Lady Raiders this season were senior setter Ava Edmonson and sophomore libero Kenley Smith.

Edmonsond, who wrapped up her fourth season as the varsity setter, earned her second career selection in as many seasons. Smith, who has been a two-year starter along the back row, notched her first career accolade.

“I am so proud of both girls for earning this title,” head coach Ashleigh Larsen said. “Even though we didn’t have quite the season we wanted to, both of them persevered and played hard every set. Ava and Kenley are great student-athletes who represent our program well.

“Ava has been the glue for our team the past couple of seasons and she stepped up even more as a senior. She’s always willing to push her teammates and strives to see them succeed. Ava has been a reliable setter who helps out on defense and has done whatever it takes to help the team get a point.

“KG has filled into the role of libero with ease and that has helped the team so much, oftentimes in ways fans or others don’t see or understand,” Larsen added. “She controls the back court and her knowledge of volleyball has been dispersed amongst her teammates, which made us better throughout the season.”

Richmond finished the regular season with a 7-14 overall record and was sixth in the final SAC standings with a 3-9 mark (regular season only).

The Lady Raiders are projected to make the NCHSAA 4A state playoffs, which would be their third return trip in as many seasons. Finalized brackets are expected to be released Sunday afternoon.

Pinecrest High School, which won the regular season and SAC tournament titles, had a player and coach take the top individual honors. Brooke Emore and Brandon Blackburn were named Player and Coach of the Year, respectfully.

Pinecrest had five selections, followed by three apiece for Hoke County, Scotland and Union Pines high schools. Lee County and Southern Lee high schools both had one player named.

Ava Edmondson, senior setter

Second career selection

In her final season with the Lady Raiders, Edmondson proved again to be an asset in the passing game and along the back row. While her primary duty was to assist hitters, she also dug in on defense.

According to MaxPreps, Edmondson finished the season with 399 assists, which put her fourth-overall in the conference. She averaged 7.8 assists per set, which was second only to Scotland’s Reagan Malpass (8.5 assists per set).

In her pursuit of 2K career assists, Edmondson recorded nine matches where she dished out at least 20 assists and had five games of 30 or more assists, including a single-match season-high of 36 assists three times.

From her defensive role along the back row, Edmondson spurred up 199 digs for an average of 3.9 digs per set and 11.1 digs per match.

At the service line, Edmondson dished out 35 aces with a serve percentage of .875, which put her in the top 15 servers in the SAC. At the net, Edmondson had 23 kills when not making passes.

“It feels really good to finish my career with my second All-Conference selection,” Edmondson said. “It’s nice to know that the coaches noticed what I’m able to do on the court and it’s a good way to end my career.

“I have to give a lot of credit to KG and the back row for getting passes up to me, which allowed me to set our hitters,” she added. “And our hitters did a great job of adjusting to passes to make it look like I do my job right all the time.”

Kenley Smith, sophomore libero

First career selection

Going from a defensive specialist as a freshman to the team’s starting libero this season, Smith made the transition and proved to be a pivotal part of keeping Richmond competitive in matches.

As the anchor along the back row, Smith went all out to provide passes to Edmondson, who then sent the ball to the hitters. Maxpreps had Smith with 294 total digs this season, an average of 5.8 digs per set and 16.3 digs per match.

Racking up seven performances of 20 or more digs, including a season-high 31 digs in a four-set match with Hoke County, Smith ranked fourth in the final SAC standings for her defensive efforts.

Also the Lady Raiders’ leader from the service line, Smith dialed up a team-high 47 aces, which tied her for seventh in the SAC with Abigail Watts of Hoke County. She had an ace percentage of .158 and led the conference with 0.9 aces per set, and a total serve percentage of .950.

Chipping in when she could on the attack, Smith totaled 38 kills from behind the line this season. Her best outing came against Montgomery Central High School, which yielded a single-match career-high seven kills.

“Considering this is my first year being chosen for All-Conference, I’m really happy about it,” Smith shared. “I’m really glad that I was able to do my job defensively the way I needed to do it in order to help the team as best I could.

“Reading the blocks and reading the hitters is something that’s difficult that many people don’t know about,” she added. “That’s definitely one of the toughest parts of playing libero. Hitters have a whole court to use, and depending if the block is early or late, I have to anticipate where the ball can go.”

Sports editor’s note: Stats used in this article were provided by MaxPreps and didn’t include stats from Richmond’s final two matches.