By Mike London
Salisbury Post
LANDIS — South Rowan’s best, most consistent sport may be volleyball.
South has been good enough on the court that a fourth-place South Piedmont Conference finish, a No. 18 seeding for the 3A West playoffs and a first-round playoff exit (at East Rowan) for a 15-10 final record, was actually a down season for the 2024 Raiders.
Part of that 15-10 was due to injuries and surgeries and part of it was due to playing in the same league with Carson, Lake Norman Charter and East Rowan, three volleyball schools that were enjoying “up” seasons.
Head coach Jenna Horne has set the bar high at South where the “Raider Rowdies” fan support for the team is legendary and approaches insanity.
Horne is now in her 11th season as head coach and entered the 2025 season with exactly 100 more wins (176) than losses (76). That’s strong. South owned the 2A Central Carolina Conference early in her career. It got tougher after the Raiders moved up to the 3A SPC, but South still contended strongly for championships and always made the playoffs.
With the NCHSAA’s switch to eight classifications for the 2025-26 school year, South is now a 4A and will be playing in a 4A/5A split league where the only two 4As are South and Salisbury. It’s still basically the same SPC, but Central Cabarrus moved up and Lake Norman Charter moved out.
South should be quite good because it has a humongous senior class of eight players, and a lot of them have been playing for a lot of years. That’s eight seniors out of the 12 players expected to play varsity. Most of them are names you know if you follow volleyball.
“I think we can be very good,” Horne said. “We’ve do have some injuries right now (to Avery Fisher, Danica Krieg and Mallory Rhyne), but hopefully they are minor, and it’s better to have those injuries now than when we’re in the middle of conference. You may not recognize our lineup for the next game or two as we patch things together, but we’re hopeful everyone will be ready to go when conference starts.”
Conference play starts for South on Aug. 26. The first three SPC games are against Northwest Cabarrus, Salisbury and West Rowan.
South Rowan’s fourth SPC game at East Rowan on Sept. 4 may be one to circle on the calendar, as that one is going to tell both teams a lot about the type of season they can expect to have. Carson is the favorite, but South and East have the potential to be the chief challengers.
South lost its first two games this season, tight matches against Uwharrie Charter and Central Davidson, but bounced back to win the next four.
“It always take us a little time to get it together,” Horne said. “But these are good girls and good athletes who have played together a long time. Some of them have played softball together. Some of them have played basketball together. They hold each other accountable in a good way. They have learned how to say the right things. They’re good at building each other up.”
High School OT provided a leaderboard for returning 2025 players, and South senior Campbell Withers, who is in her fourth year as the libero, ranked third among returning 4A players in digs with 420. Seniors Meghan Eagle (271) and Fisher (252) also are on the 4A leaderboard for digs.
South’ employs a 6-2 system (the two setters hit when they’re on the front row and set when they’re in the back). Senior setters Eagle (277) and Raegan Shell (227) are among the returning 4A leaders in assists.
Krieg and Eva Shue are seniors who battle mostly in the middle.
Krieg has some bounce and she’s also probably the tallest girl on a relatively small team. A Coker softball commit, she might be 5-foot-10 wearing two pairs of socks.
Also available to do some damage in the middle now is Cressley Patterson, who looks like the key addition to this season’s team. Patterson is a softball superstar, but she also plays volleyball and basketball. An injury kept her out of action for two of her freshman sports seasons, but she was healthy for softball and made a massive impact.
Fisher and another senior outside hitter, Clancy Street, are strong blockers.
While Campbell Withers anchors the back row defense, she gets plenty of help from her twin, Cailynn Withers. a senior defensive specialist.
“They like playing next to each other, and they’re very good playing next to each other,” Horne said. “Not all sisters are.”
The non-seniors on the roster in addition to Patterson are setter Aubree Knight and outside hitters Leisha Carter, an athletic softball star, and Rhyne.
South’s jayvees are almost always good, and when players make the varsity team they are accustomed to working and winning and fitting in. This is a program that pretty much reloads every year.
“Well. we’d love to have a 6-footer, but I think we’ll be fine with what we have,” Horne said. “We’ve got to get healthy, but if we do, we can have a very exciting season.”
