James Wood pumped about breakthrough win over Millbrook

When Olivia Biggs’ spike on match point was blocked out of bounds on Thursday night at Millbrook High School’s Casey Gymnasium, the James Wood senior middle blocker dropped to her knees and screamed and was immediately swarmed by her teammates.

A few minutes after the match played in front of a roaring, near-capacity crowd was over with, Biggs was again in the center of the action. She organized several picture opportunities, then brought everyone back for one last team huddle after players had started to walk away when the last photo was taken.

These are the emotions and moments that happen when you give everything you have for nearly two hours to finally experience joy after four years of nothing but defeat against your county rivals.

James Wood’s 25-19, 19-25, 25-16, 23-25, 17-15 victory kept the 13-2 Colonels unbeaten in the Class 4 Northwestern District at 8-0, resulted in the first loss of the season for Millbrook (10-1, 6-1) and was James Wood’s first victory over the Pioneers since 2014. Millbrook defeated the Colonels 11 straight times from 2015-18, including postseason victories that ended James Wood’s season each of the previous two years.

“What was going through on my head [on the final point] was, ‘Oh my gosh, [Katey Matthews] is going to set me, I have to put this down, I have to finish this,’” Biggs said. “I knew I had to do it for myself, and I knew I needed to push through for my team.

“I was just so proud of Katey for that set. It was momentous.”

Senior right side Lainie Putt and Biggs said they were proud of the sophomore setter Matthews for improving both her serving and setting as the match went on, and were particularly pleased with her play in the fifth set.

Putt and Biggs said everyone’s ability to support each other on the team is a big reason why they thought their breakthrough moment was possible on Thursday.

“I think we’ve bonded really well this year,” said Putt, who led James Wood with 13 kills. “I think everybody loves each other. We’re really like a family this year. Everybody appreciates the other person.”

Biggs said James Wood’s mental game and not its physical play was its biggest problem with Millbrook in the past.

The Pioneers gave the Colonels reason to doubt themselves early on Thursday by jumping out to a 14-8 lead, but James Wood showed it would not back down with a 13-1 run to take a 21-15 lead. Millbrook called a timeout after Katie Costin jumped on a return and knocked it down for a kill to make it 16-15, but the Colonels kept rolling with five more points.

“I think we were definitely mentally not there [in the beginning],” Putt said. “But once we figured out we could [succeed, our style of play] came back to us.”

“[Coming back like that] really showed we could push through as a team, and we’re capable of anything when we play as a team,” Biggs said.

James Wood struggled with its hitting in the first set with five attack errors but had just six over the remainder of the match. Putt, Kristyna Van Sickler (12 kills, 14 digs, three aces) and Grace Frigaard (11 kills) all registered double-digit kill totals.

The Colonels struggled to keep their serves in for much of the night (13 errors from the second through fourth set), but also delivered some clutch serves when they needed them.

After Millbrook won the second set, the third set was tied 13-13 before Van Sickler kicked off a 12-3 run with an ace to give James Wood a 2-1 lead in sets. Costin added two more aces in the run, which also featured a highlight-reel play from libero Rebecca Lever.

A James Wood dig was bumped up high and went off the basketball backboard hanging from the ceiling. With her back to the net and near the back of the court, Lever (13 digs) bumped a low-trajectory ball over her head that fell into the center of the Millbrook side of the court, prompting excited reactions from the team’s players and fans. One point later, James Wood won the set at 25-16 on a kill from Alyssah McGuire.

James Wood also got two consecutive aces from Hanna Plasters (30 digs, six assists, four aces) to give the Colonels a 12-11 lead as part of a 5-1 run in the fifth set. After a Plasters-to-Frigaard kill denied Millbrook on match point to make it 15-15, the Colonels then got an ace from Matthews as a result of a little luck — her serve went off the top of the net and quickly went downward, too far in front of a diving Tori Johnson to get to.

“Our biggest Achilles’ heel tonight was our serving,” said James Wood first-year head coach Jaime Terenzi. “That’s a big morale killer to miss a serve, especially when you’re getting close to the end of a set. But I think we did a really good job recovering from those moments. [And those aces at the end] were very helpful.”

After Matthews’ ace, Millbrook’s Ashley Roberts went up and challenged Biggs on James Wood’s first try at a match point. It was a strong effort by Roberts — Terenzi thought for a moment that the block was going to land in to tie the match — but instead it set off a jubilant James Wood scene.

“I think we played very well all around,” Terenzi said. “I think everyone played their game and everyone did their job. I”m happy for the team.”

James Wood’s only two losses this year came Sept. 7 in best-of-3-set matches in the Loudoun Valley Tournament against West Virginia powerhouse Musselman (2-1), which has six West Virginia Class AAA state championships in 11 years, and Westfield (2-0), a Class 6 state quarterfinalist last year.

The Colonels kept themselves undefeated in best-of-five-set matches Thursday night, and beating their rival in their first match to go the distance this year in that format should do wonders for them going forward.

“We definitely played as a team tonight,” Putt said. “More as a team than we have in the past.”

Millbrook Millbrook’s loss to James Wood certainly had nothing to do with effort. Down 2-1 in sets and with the score tied 4-4 in the fourth set, the Pioneers lost one of their area’s best all-around players in Skylar Johnson to a leg injury after she came down awkwardly on a spike attempt. Coming into Thursday, Johnson ranked first in the area in aces (47, twice as many as anyone else), second in digs (111), third in kills (91) and eighth in assists (104).

But the Pioneers dug deep by pulling out a back-and-forth set 25-23, with an impressive dig by Jessica Cleveland (14 digs) leading to a kill from Madelyn White on set point. The Pioneers even held a match point at 15-14 before James Wood rattled off three straight points.

“I thought our serve receive was off at times, but I really think we fought hard tonight,” said Milton, who did not know the extent of Skylar Johnson’s injury Thursday. “[After Johnson left], [the players] came back, they worked hard and got to the fifth set. We had our chances, but we just couldn’t close it out.”

The Pioneers were hurt by four attack errors in the final set, but Skylar’s older sister Tori was on fire throughout the match. She had between four and six kills in every set and finished with 25 total. Mikayla Ockerman aided the effort with three kills in the fifth set.

Madison Koeller added 16 assists and five aces, Autumn Stroop had 13 assists, and Jordan Weir had four blocks in the match.

Milton said one thing the Pioneers need to continue to work on is communication. For example, Tori Johnson and Ashleigh Nail bumped into each other going for the same ball near the net in the fifth set, resulting in a point that cut Millbrook’s lead to 10-9.

“We’ve got to get back to working on communication and back to basics,” Milton said. “Next week is the first game of the second half of district play. We’ve got to have every one of them [from now on if we want to win the district title].”

Week aheadThere are no matchups between local schools next week. Tuesday: James Wood at Culpeper County, 7 p.m.; Sherando at Fauquier, 7 p.m.; Kettle Run at Handley, 7:15 p.m.; Millbrook at Liberty, 7:15 p.m.; Clarke County at Madison County, 7:15 p.m. Wednesday: Martinsburg (W.Va.) at Sherando, 7 p.m. Thursday: Page County at Clarke County, 7:15 p.m.

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