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King needed every bit of a career performance from outside attacker Warren Davis to advance in the ConfCarolinas Tournament.
Davis led all players with a career-high 26 kills as the No. 3 seed King rallied from a two-game deficit to beat the No. 6 seed Mount Olive 15-25, 23-25, 25-22, 25-21, 15-13 in the quarterfinals on Tuesday in Bristol, Tennessee.
The junior had 19 kills in the final three games of the comeback win, including a game-high five kills in the decisive fifth game. Davis also had the match-winning kill that prevented a fifth-game overtime and secured the Tornado’s sixth consecutive trip to the ConfCarolinas Tournament semifinals.
King had a match-best .333 attack percentage in the final game.
The Tornado overcame hitting in the negative in the opening-game loss and finished the match out-hitting the Trojans .195 to .181. In addition, Mount Olive limited Davis to a single kill in the first game.
Along with Davis, Aaron Milstead contributed 12 kills against Mount Olive. Both Davis and Milstead were the only King players to have more than seven kills in front of a home crowd of 213 people.
Outside attacker Tate Sandvig in the loss had a team-high 18 kills and was one of three Trojans with double-digit kills. Hayden Frear finished with 15 kills, while Justin Gregory added 14 kills.
Mount Olive libero Trevor Treser defensively led all players with 32 digs. This was the most digs in a NCAA match since the NCAA started tracking individual men’s volleyball single-match records in 2017.
Mount Olive also out-blocked King 11 to 8 with Frear having a match-high six blocks.
King, which is the host site for the conference tournament semifinals and finals, will advance to play the No. 2 seed Erskine in the semifinals on Friday.
Erskine as the No. 2 seed earned a bye to the semifinals.