Wood Volleyball Closes Out Heritage, 3-1

Posted: November 6, 2013
By ROBERT STOCKS
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — James Wood outsider hitter Lindsey Painter admitted that the Colonels were a little more fired up than usual knowing that their volleyball season hinged on getting a victory over Heritage in Tuesday night’s Conference 21 semifinals.

So after Heritage answered with a dominant third set to stay in the match, Painter said the Colonels wanted to avoid a decisive fifth set.

And the 6-foot-2 junior made sure James Wood closed out Heritage in four sets, hammering home six of her team-high 21 kills in the set to lead the Colonels to a 3-1 (25-22, 25-18, 17-25, 25-21) win over the Pride at Donald H. Shirley Gymnasium.

With the victory, James Wood (22-3) clinched a berth in next week’s 4A North Region tournament and the Colonels now move on to face top-seeded Loudoun County in the conference final on the Raiders’ court Thursday night at 7 in Leesburg.

James Wood never trailed in the fourth set, and Painter said taking an early lead was key in getting the momentum back.

“It was big because we just wanted to finish it in four,” Painter said. “We didn’t want to go to five. We just wanted to jump out and get ahead.”

Painter helped James Wood jump ahead early, putting away three kills to stake the Colonels to a 5-2 advantage.

A net violation followed by a hitting error by Heritage (14-8) pushed Wood’s lead to five, and then the Colonels stretched the lead from there when junior libero Ally Iden stepped to the service line.

Iden’s back-to-back aces put the Colonels ahead 16-9, but Heritage answered with five straight points capped by a kill from Madeline Fowler and an ace by Sydney Busa to cut Wood’s lead to 16-14.

Heritage kept it close from there until Wood junior Ashley Hillyard fired a kill off Busa and then Painter followed with a block on Busa to push James Wood’s lead to 23-18.

Busa and Painter traded kills to set up match point for James Wood, but Busa tried to keep Heritage alive. She had back-to-back kills on the first two match points before Hillyard deftly faked a set and pushed the ball just past the Pride’s front line to seal the victory.

James Wood coach Jill Couturiaux said her team generally rises to the occasion against quality competition like Heritage.

“Heritage is definitely one of the better teams we’ve seen all season,” Couturiaux said. “I think for us we just maintained our consistency and stuck with our game plan coming into tonight with how we were going to compete with them defensively. And offensively, we stuck with the plan.

“We didn’t go the middle as much as we typically do but that had something to do with their big block [Busa] on the other side of the net. But I think our right sides did a nice job of getting the kills and finding the open holes offensively. Lindsey did a tremendous job on the left side. [Busa] is a big blocker and we had a hard time getting around her, but with Lindsey’s wingspan and her height that definitely helped.”

Another facet of the Colonels’ game that helped greatly was their ability to get contributions from several players across the front line.

Molly Tierney and Taylor Heishman contributed a few blocks in the middle, and Hillyard (13 kills and 16 assists) showed her all-around game once again. Senior Brandi Griffith (five kills) and freshman Leilani Burch (four kills) added to the Colonels’ versatile attack.

“Our offense was working on hitting it to where they weren’t,” said Iden, who led Wood with 21 digs. “We were working on hitting shots, and I definitely think we did that well tonight.”

Heritage dominated the third set, and Busa’s play was a big reason why the Pride had so much success.

She nearly equaled the Colonels’ point total in the set by herself, carrying Heritage with nine kills and five blocks en route to a 25-17 win to keep the Pride in the match.

Busa — who will play at Division-I Elon next year and had her 1,000th-career kill in Monday night’s 3-0 win over Millbrook — said the Colonels made it difficult because they didn’t make many mistakes.

“They limited their own errors so when we had unforced errors it gave them free points,” said Busa, who had match-high 22 kills and eight blocks. “We really didn’t get free points in return.

“It was harder [against James Wood] because they spread out the offense and mixed it up — so that threw us off a little bit.”

James Wood survived 13 ties in the opening set before the Colonels closed it out with a kill by Painter followed by an errant hit by Heritage and then a kill by Burch on set point for a 25-22 win.

The Colonels never trailed in the second set, getting three kills and a pair of aces from Hillyard and four kills from Painter in a 25-18 win.

Heritage coach Allison Smith said her team just couldn’t get back into it after falling behind 2-0.

“[James Wood] definitely brings a lot of hustle and their defense is definitely on point,” Smith said. “It’s tough to put a ball down against them.”

The Colonels might have struggled with Busa at times — particularly in the third set — but they had little trouble handling the rest of Heritage’s front-line players. Iden’s play at libero along with Ashley and Megan Hillyard setting the offense allowed James Wood to counter the Pride’s attack more often than not.

Couturiaux liked that her team never lost focus after Heritage stayed in the match with a convincing win in set three.

“Two or three times we’ve had our backs up against the wall in a fifth set and in the fourth set I just told them ‘good teams find a way to win and I know we’ll find a way to beat this team,’” Couturiaux said. “And they did that. I’m just impressed with their mental toughness and their heart and the drive that they have this season.”

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