Colonels Advance, Earn State Berth

Posted: November 14, 2014
By KEVIN TRUDGEON
The Winchester Star

FOREST — The James Wood volleyball team didn’t know much about Jefferson Forest heading into Thursday’s 4A North Region semifinal match, but it didn’t take them long to find some things out.

Utilizing an aggressive service game that had the Colonels on their heels almost from the opening point, the host Cavaliers jumped out to a 13-6 lead and never looked back on their way to a quick 25-20 win in the first set.

“I usually like to prepare the girls with a full scouting report and a little film on who we’re playing, but we couldn’t dig up anything on [Jefferson Forest],” said James Wood coach Jill Couturiaux. “So we had no idea that their serve would be so aggressive. They’re the best serving team we’ve seen all season and we had to make some adjustments.”

Starting with a spirited talk before the start of the second set where Couturiaux challenged her players to be stronger mentally in their serve receive, the Colonels answered their surprising opening-set loss by rattling off six straight points to start the second set, taking back the momentum and finding their stride all in one swoop.

The adjustments on the back line slowed the Cavalier service attack, and James Wood’s offense was simply too much to handle as the Colonels stormed back to win 3-1 (20-25, 25-20, 25-19, 25-16) and not only advance to Saturday’s 4A North Region final against Loudoun County, which swept Fauquier in the other semifinals, but also clinch an automatic berth into the state tournament for a third consecutive year.

“It took us a little while, but I thought as soon as we started getting a good pass, we were able to put the ball away,” said Couturiaux, whose team trailed just twice over the final three sets. “I told the girls that we had to toughen up mentally and instead of thinking, ‘Man, I hope she doesn’t serve me,’ we’ve got to be telling ourselves, ‘Give me the ball, I dare you to serve it to me this time.’

“And I got a lot of head nods in that moment [between the first and second set] and I’m not saying it was a total transformation, but I think we definitely moved past a case of the shanks we had there early.”

Setting up deeper on defense and relying on better footwork and communication along the back line to combat the Cavaliers’ float serves, James Wood (25-3) surrendered just four aces over the final three sets — compared to the four it gave up in the first set alone — and got its offense on track early and often.

Senior setter/outside hitter Ashley Hillyard (team-high 30 assists) opened up the second set with a deep push to space to kick-start a 9-3 run that featured a pair of kills from senior opposite Lindsey Painter and a solo block from junior middle Emma Montgomery that put Jefferson Forest (20-8) in a deep hole it could never climb out of.

And after a closely fought third set that saw the Colonels pull away late, senior libero Ally Iden (34 digs) and senior defensive specialist Abby Prelip fired off a pair of aces as part of a 9-2 run to start the fourth set and put the match out of reach.

“They were definitely serving deeper than any team we’d ever played, so after the first set we knew we had to adjust to win the match,” said Iden, who broke the James Wood’s career digs record in Tuesday’s 3-1 win over Fluvanna. “Once we kind of saw what they had and got adjusted to it, it was a little bit easier to know what was coming at us.”

While the fast starts in the second and fourth sets provided big leads to build off of, the Colonels knew who to go to whenever the Cavaliers tried to close the gap.

Despite being the obvious focus of the Jefferson Forest defense, senior Katie Houser was her usual dominant self on the outside, wracking up a match-best and school-record 36 kills in just about every way imaginable.

Whether she was slamming shots past frozen defenders, working the lines with cut shots, switching to her left hand to get around a block or dropping perfectly placed tips and rolls over the block, Houser was a force from start to finish that the Cavaliers simply had no answer for.

“We tried a few different blocking schemes and [Houser] adjusted to everything we did,” said Jefferson Forest coach Steve Mills, whose team was back in the region semifinals for the first time since 2010. “And she tipped it really well. She didn’t mind tipping it, where some big players just want to keep banging away. So she’s smart and she just started putting the ball where we weren’t.”

After Jefferson Forest cut the deficit to 13-9 in the second set, Houser accounted for eight of the Colonels’ next nine points with kills to help maintain the lead, and the Notre Dame commit added 11 more in the fourth set, including three during the decisive 5-0 run that clinched the match.

“Last game [against Fluvanna] I saw the opening and every team’s thinking I’m going to hit the ball hard every single time, so it’s become really easy just to tip it,” said Houser, who will be signing with Notre Dame today. “The first set was definitely a struggle, and I needed to move my feet better, but we adjusted and everyone contributed tonight. Did we play our best? No, but we played our best when we needed to.”

Sophomore Taylor Heishman had a pair of blocks, including a solo job at the middle of the net that helped start a run that turned a 14-12 lead into a 20-13 advantage in the third set, Hillyard added nine kills, sophomore opposite Leilani Burch had a couple big kills and sophomore setter Megan Hillyard added 16 assists in the win.

James Wood will now travel to take on Loudoun County, who they are 0-2 against this season, in the 4A North Region finals at 7 p.m. Saturday, with the knowledge that no matter what happens it has secured a berth into next week’s Group 4A state tournament.

“Two years ago we went to the quarterfinals, last year the semifinals and our goal this year is to make it to the finals,” Couturiaux said. “With this group of seniors, I’m hoping the third time’s the charm.”

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

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