Wood Volleyball Falls In 3 To Raiders

Posted: October 29, 2014
By KEVIN TRUDGEON
The Winchester Star

LEESBURG — For all of the accolades and praise the James Wood volleyball team has received, the Colonels know that the road to their stated goal of a state championship runs through Loudoun County.

Winners of six of the last seven state championships, the Raiders (20-2) are the epitome of a perennial powerhouse, and will continue to be so until someone knocks them off.

Tuesday night James Wood (20-2) walked into Loudoun County’s home gym with the hopes of delivering an early message before the start of postseason play, but instead they came away knowing that there is still work to be done.

The Colonels put up a fight but it was the Raiders, aided by a controversial call in the second set, who flexed their muscles in an impressive 3-0 (25-18, 27-25, 25-16) sweep.

“This exposed some things that we definitely need to work on if we want to continue to play in the postseason, and I’m OK with that,” said James Wood coach Jill Couturiaux, whose team lost for the first time in nearly two months. “There’s always work to be done and you learn a lot more from a loss than you do a win. We did some things well against a really good team, but there are areas where we can get better.”

One of the areas Couturiaux pointed to was net coverage on defense.

Although the Colonels managed a handful of blocks on the night, including a team-high three from sophomore middle blocker Taylor Heishman, Loudoun County’s multi-pronged attack had its way at times against them.

Junior Taylor Borup, who committed to North Carolina as a freshman, commanded attention on the outside with her 11 kills, but senior right side Olivia Aycock added seven kills, junior middle Rachel Voketaitis finished with five and senior setter Hannah Vandegrift showed she could swing when left uncovered by tallying nine kills.

“We have not played a team in a very long time where we’ve needed to worry about three attackers at the front line,” Couturiaux said. “They challenged our middles to get to the pins to establish the double block and that’s just something we haven’t faced in a long time.”

That diverse attack of the Raiders was on full display in the first set when they went on a decisive 14-4 run to take control.

Down 9-7 after a kill from Colonel senior Ashley Hillyard (seven kills and 17 assists), Loudoun County quickly rallied behind a pair of kills from Aycock and two James Wood hitting errors.

From there Aycock added two more kills and teamed up with middle Abby Wright for a block, Borup recorded consecutive kills and a solo block, Vandegrift found a hole in the James Wood defense from the right side and Voketaitis put away a quick set at the middle to stretch the lead to 22-14 and put the Colonels in a quick hole.

“It’s tremendous as a coach [to have those kind of weapons],” said Loudoun Valley first-year coach Sherrilyn Hanna. “A lot of times I just wind them up and let them go because they’re so talented and they’re so smart. They’ve played at high levels for a long, long time and they know what to do.”

The second set featured more of the same from the Raiders early on as Vandegrift, Borup and senior outside hitter Ciara Kain peppered the Colonel defense. By the time Vandegrift fired off the second of her back-to-back aces, Loudoun County held a commanding 14-6 lead and appeared ready to cruise to a 2-0 lead.

But in times of trouble team’s turn to their star, and senior outside hitter Katie Houser stepped up in a big way for James Wood.

The Notre Dame-bound Houser, who finished with a match-best 23 kills, halted the Raiders’ run with a string of three kills in four points, combined with junior Emma Montgomery and Heishman on a pair of blocks and then added two more kills to the deep corner, sparking a 12-3 run that gave the Colonels their first lead of the set at 18-17.

“You have to give Wood credit, they never stopped fighting,” Hanna said. “We’ve scouted them, they’ve scouted us, and they came in with things mixed up and trying to run different things than what we’ve seen and they gave us some trouble.”

The rest of the second set featured the kind of back and forth action many fans in the stands expected to see, with the two sides providing one big play after another and pulling even at 22, 23, 24 and 25.

It was a Houser kill off the block that tied things up at 25-25, and it appeared the Colonels would have set point after a Borup attempt sailed wide on the ensuing play.

But the line judge ruled that the ball had been tipped at the net, and despite vocal protests from the James Wood coaching staff, players and their fans, the Raiders were awarded the point and clinched the set on a block by Borup and Voketaitis.

“I have got the most honest group of girls and if it’s a touch they’ll say they touched it and we’ll move on to the next point,” Couturiaux said. “But from the reaction they had instantaneously when they were called for a touch let me know that they didn’t touch it.

“It’s difficult, the up ref is in a tough, difficult position and in my opinion it should have been called a replay and that could have changed the dynamic of the entire match. It was a tough one to lose, it took a lot of the wind out of our sails.”

To their credit the Colonels did not hang their heads in the third set. Kills from Hillyard and Houser, along with some big contributions from junior outside hitter Kirsten Mullin on the front line and senior libero Ally Iden (19 digs) on the back line, allowed James Wood to hold the lead at 10-9 and again at 15-14.

But much like it did in the first set, Loudoun County went on a run that saw four different players record kills and turned the one-point deficit into a 21-15 lead that the Colonels simply could not overcome.

The win clinched both the top seed in the upcoming Conference 21 Tournament and an automatic berth into the 4A North Region Tournament for the Raiders, and it left the Colonels with plenty to think about on the bus ride home.

“They got on a lot of really good runs and they have a really good defense too, so it was difficult for us to put the ball away at times if we didn’t have the perfect pass,” said Hillyard, who tied for the team-lead in assists with her younger sister Megan.

“But they’re a really good team. We have a lot of respect for them and I love playing against them. I thought it was a great learning experience for us and I think we showed that we can play with them. Hopefully we get to see them again because I think we’ll be more prepared the next time we play them.”

— Contact Kevin Trudgeon at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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