Sherando topples Wood 3-1

By Robert Stocks
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — With first place in the Northwestern District on the line Thursday night, Sherando senior setter Taylor Henshaw said the Warriors kept their focus on evening the season series against James Wood.

After all, the rival Colonels entered the match as the last team to defeat Sherando.

The Warriors got even, extending their winning streak to eight with a 3-1 (25-17, 25-21, 24-26, 25-15) victory in front of a loud, near-capacity crowd at the Colonels’ homecourt.

Sherando and Millbrook both have 4-1 district records, but the Warriors won those teams’ first meeting, giving them the leg up for now.

“I don’t think we were thinking about this is for first place,” Henshaw said. “We were thinking about how [James Wood] beat us the first time and we wanted to beat them.” The Warriors dropped a five-set thriller to the Colonels in the district opener on Sept. 16, but Sherando (12-5) clearly had its chances to win that match, with James Wood winning its three sets by a combined eight points.

After dropping the first two sets Thursday, the Colonels (10-6, 3-2) bounced back with a hard-fought 26-24 win in the third, but Sherando halted James Wood’s momentum there.

Sherando jumped out to an early 4-1 lead in the fourth set after back-to-back aces by sophomore Morgan Sirbaugh and a James Wood hitting error.

The Warriors never trailed in the fourth and maintained at least a three-point margin after consecutive kills by junior Lauren Wilkins made it 14-11.

Sherando stretched its lead to 20-14 after an ace by sophomore Brooke Schneider that forced James Wood coach Jill Lester to call her second timeout.

The Warriors responded with two more quick points after a block by senior Ashleigh Tanis and another ace by Schneider that pushed Sherando’s advantage to 22-14.

After a hitting error by the Colonels, Sherando closed out the match with an ace by Wilkins and a block by Morgan Sirbaugh.

Sherando coach Chuck Ashby said his team played with more focus in Thursday’s rematch with the Colonels.

“In the second or third game [of the Sept. 16 match] we just didn’t look like we were playing confident,” Ashby said. “We looked like we were scared to play.

“This time, I kept preaching to play confident and don’t worry about making mistakes. Play strong and play confident, and that’s what they did.”

Sherando set the tone right away with a strong service game. The Warriors had six aces in the first set and then seven (four by Henshaw, three by Wilkins) in the second set. Henshaw was at the service line during a 14-0 run by the Warriors that erased a 10-3 deficit in the second set.

“Taylor in that second game must have served 10 or 15 in a row it seemed like,” Ashby said. “That’s what you’ve got to do. [The Colonels] are tough and you know they’re going to be able to pass and you’ve just got to be able to serve and pass better than they can.”

“I said before we even came over here that serving was going to be our game,” Henshaw said. “It was, and when you get your serve in you can do everything else. We controlled the game. We had our down points, but we kept it together.”

The Colonels, playing their third district match of the week after a Skyline match was re-scheduled to Monday, struggled with serve-receive and errors, and Lester said fatigue might have been a factor.

“We didn’t get destroyed and we had 25 hitting errors,” Lester said. “I think Sherando plays a respectable game and they were putting the ball away and playing good defense. We’re very tired right now. We played three district matches this week and that’s something that no other team has done this year. ... That’s too much for a team.”

Emily Shannon led James Wood with 15 kills, and Carly Mullin added 23 assists and five aces. Cady Schaffer made a team-high 16 digs for the Colonels.

Wilkins led Sherando with 12 kills, while Morgan Sirbaugh chipped in 11.

After splitting the regular-season series, Wilkins said there’s a good chance the two teams will meet again.

“They’re a hard-working team and it’s always up-and-down with James Wood every year,” Wilkins said. “We play with half of them with different travel teams so it’s never going to be just one team winning all the time. They beat us last time, and we wanted to show them that we could beat them, too.”

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