Colonels Sweep Woodgrove, Advance To Conference 21 Volleyball Finals

Posted: November 5, 2014
By MARK SAWYER
Special to The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — The last two seasons the James Wood volleyball team rode its talents all the way to the state tournament, and anything short of a return trip this season may not be considered a failure, but would certainly be a huge disappointment.

The Colonels’ season has already been a huge success story as they finished the regular season with only two losses and added another Northwestern District title to their résumé in the process.

But needing another victory to qualify for its fourth straight region tournament appearance, James Wood took the court in what may be its last home match of the season and took care of business as usual.

Behind Northwestern District Player of the Year Katie Houser, the second-seeded Colonels held off the upset bid of third-seeded Woodgrove Tuesday night and rolled to a 3-0 (25-14, 25-19, 25-16) sweep of the Wolverines in the semifinals of the Conference 21 Tournament at Wood’s Donald H. Shirley Gymnasium.

With the win the Colonels not only advance to Thursday’s championship match at two-time defending state champion Loudoun County — which could be the first of three upcoming postseason meetings between the two squads — but they also qualify for next week’s 4A North Region Tournament.

Houser, who helped lead James Wood to the state tournament as sophomore but missed last year’s run due to injury, led the way Tuesday night with a match-high 11 kills and eight aces, and was a factor at the net all night long.

“Last year I remember, maybe it was this same [conference semifinal] game, saying to someone that I would have given anything I owned to play in that game,” Houser said. “So that’s kind of the feeling I had, I wouldn’t give this up for anything. This means a lot.

“It doesn’t matter who it is we play [Thursday night], the goal is always going to be the same.”

James Wood (23-2), which had swept the Wolverines at the beginning of the season, had its hands full early with the visitors from Purcellville.

The first set was back and forth with neither team holding more than a three-point lead in the early going. Each time one team would get out to a lead, the other would rally back to tie. Set one was tied a total of eight times with the last coming at 12-12.

Houser gave the Colonels the lead for good with the first of her 11 kills to break the tie and spark a 9-1 run that pushed the Colonels out to a comfortable 21-13 cushion.

During the run James Wood had some nice play at the net and a few great defensive plays, but it was the Woodgrove mistakes that paved the way for the Colonels. The Wolverines committed six errors to turn a close set into a runaway.

Wood more then took advantage of the Woodgrove miscues. The Colonels were able to close out the first set with a kill from sophomore middle blocker Taylor Heishman, an ace by Houser and two more Woodgrove errors.

“I was a little nervous coming into tonight, I’m not going to lie,” said James Wood coach Jill Couturiaux. “They’re a team that keeps getting better. They showed that with some teams they beat during the season.

“They made some errors and had trouble with their serving tonight and we were able to take advantage of that. It’s comforting to know we can rely on our attackers. We have a couple things we need to work on and we will do that tomorrow.”

In the second set the Colonels dominated from the opening serve, at least until late in the game when it appeared it was all but over.

The Colonels snapped a 3-3 tie with a 6-0 run behind three kills and a block by Houser, and an ace by sophomore setter Megan Hillyard,

Houser then ripped off three impressive aces in a row to push the advantage to 13-4. The Colonels would eventually stretch the lead to 17-7 and it looked as if the Wolverines had spent all they had to offer in the first set and the Colonels were going to coast to a victory and a three-set sweep of the match.

But with its season on the line, Woodgrove refused to go away and it battled its way back into the set and the match.

Trailing 21-10 following a kill from junior outside hitter Kirsten Mullin, the Wolverines started to chip away and crawl back into the game. A 4-0 run closed the deficit to 21-15.

That’s as close as Woodgrove would get until the last couple points of the set when they were able to close to within five, but they were unable to fully recover.

Houser again led the way in the second set with five kills, three aces and two blocks, and four different Colonels had kills and aces in the second set alone.

“It’s definitely nice to have so many different attackers, one person can’t do it all by herself,” Houser said. “And Ashley [Hillyard] does an amazing job of setting us up.”

The third and final set was a near carbon copy of the first set, with both teams battling back and forth, neither jumping out to a very big lead, and the set seeing eight ties.

With the third set tied 12-12, the Colonels regained the serve on a service error by the Wolverines. It was one of 10 mistakes that Woodgrove made from the service line.

Houser followed that up with an ace and another kill by Heishman made it 15-12. Two more errors by the visitors and a kill by Wood sophomore opposite Leilani Burch and the lead was 18-12.

The Colonels would extend their lead to 22-14 before eventually, and fittingly, wining the set and match on Houser’s 11th kill of the night, which ended the season for the Wolverines and set up and whole new set of goals for the Colonels.

“We’ve been an underdog [to Loudoun County] pretty much since I’ve been here and we’d take that title with pride,” Couturiaux said. “Every year there’s a Cinderella story and we wouldn’t mind being that story this year.”