Eno River completes perfect regular season against Oxford Prep
Oct. 7—HILLSBOROUGH — On Wednesday, the Eno River Bobcats joined the likes of UCLA Bruins men's basketball, UConn women's basketball, and the 1972 Miami Dolphins by accomplishing something unheralded in the sports world: completing a perfect regular season.
With a 20-0 finish, the Bobcats closed out the regular season schedule without a blemish, en route to a conference championship.
Unfortunately for the Oxford Prep Griffins, they were on the other side of the net as Eno River hosted Senior Night.
April Abbott's squad battled in the conference matchup, but were unable to overcome the miscues, falling in three sets.
"I feel like l left my team in Oxford when I came here," said Abbott.
The Griffins scored just 20 or more points in one set in the raucous environment, a recipe for disaster in the Triangle North 1A Conference.
Facing the best team in their conference, Oxford Prep was anxious to play spoiler and be the ones to knock off the Bobcats, but fell short in the high-stakes contest.
"Tonight they were just overwhelmed with the sense of 'We want to give them a run for their money,' since they are undefeated," said Abbott. "I think that just took over when they were focused on the scoreboard and not every individual play."
Eyes on the scoreboard instead of the court led to some costly mistakes, particularly against the Bobcats' offense.
"Our defense has been an issue all season. We are not solid there and that is something we are trying to fix," said Abbott. "It's not quite where we need it to be, obviously."
While the defensive performance was the main concern in the road contest, Abbott also attributed the loss to their lack of consistent net play.
The warmups for the Griffins could have been a moment of foreshadowing for their head coach, as her lineup choices were uncertain heading into the match.
"I don't ever know what team is going to walk in on what day so I have to watch through warmups to see who's here and who's not," said Abbott. "One minute before turning in lineups, I was still trying to figure out who was playing today because I could see in warmups things were a little shaky."
Despite the notch in the loss column, Oxford Prep remains in third place in league play and will have a favorable matchup against Granville Central on Friday to close out the week.
Although it is a non-conference matchup, it is a chance to erase Wednesday's loss and look toward the final week of the regular season.
"Hopefully we use [Thursday] as a more intense practice, no mercy mentality," said Abbott. "Go out there and you're going hard for every ball that you make contact with. We've had a lot of issues with taking plays off and that's what we're going to focus on Friday."
A winning record during the regular season is already guaranteed and the Griffins have established a successful culture in Oxford, amassing their second highest win total since 2015.
The Griffins will close out the last week of the regular season with home contests against Voyager Academy and Henderson Collegiate, both of whom they defeated earlier in conference play.
