Raiders Sweep James Wood Volleyball For 3rd Straight State Title

Posted: November 24, 2014
By KEVIN TRUDGEON
The Winchester Star

RICHMOND — Through the first six points of the first set, the James Wood volleyball team was right on schedule.

The Colonels came into Saturday’s Group 4A state championship match knowing they needed to jump out to early leads against two-time defending state champ Loudoun County, and they did just that.

Following a Taylor Borup kill for the Raiders, senior Katie Houser hammered home a kill to tie the score at 2-2 and senior defensive specialist Abby Prelip entered the game and promptly ripped off back-to-back aces, sparking a roar from the James Wood fans.

It would prove to be one of the few highlights in the match for the Colonels, and the only time they led all night.

Loudoun County answered the quick start with four straight points to take the lead for good and never trailed the rest of the way as it swept James Wood 3-0 (25-14, 25-20, 25-13) at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Siegel Center in Richmond Saturday.

“Usually they come out a little slower and we come out excited to play, and I think the difference was they maintained consistency throughout the entire match, whereas we were making errors,” said James Wood coach Jill Couturiaux.

“We just had too many errors, and I think in the first set they may have had one. That’s hard to compete with. We’re trying to be aggressive at the service line, we’re trying to be aggressive offensively and it just didn’t work in our favor.”

The three-set sweep was a break from the narrative that had seen James Wood (26-5) improve each time it played Loudoun County (28-2) this season.

The Colonels were swept in the regular season, lost in four sets in the Conference 21 final and fell in five sets in the 4A North Region final. And in each of the previous two meetings they had won the first set and forced Loudoun County to rally back.

But on Saturday the Raiders used a 13-3 run midway through the first set to pull away for a comfortable win and never looked back in a match that took just 65 minutes to complete.

“We came into this wanting to leave no doubt,” said Loudoun County first-year coach Sherrilyn Hanna, whose team captured its seventh state title in eight years.

“We had three matches [with James Wood] played on our home court … and we just wanted to leave no doubt, that it’s not home-court advantage, that it’s not referees calling it. So we definitely had something to prove today and the girls just absolutely came out determined, focused to make it happen and they did.”

Not much went right for the Colonels after that early 4-2 lead, and Borup had a lot to do with it.

The 6-foot-3 junior outside hitter who committed to the University of North Carolina as a freshman accounted for six of Loudoun County’s first eight points — four kills and two blocks — and was simply unstoppable at the net, finishing with a team-high 14 kills and four blocks, to go along with 12 digs.

James Wood senior setter/outside hitter Ashley Hillyard (team-high 13 assists, nine digs and five kills) had back-to-back kills to cut the Raiders’ lead to 9-8 in the first set, but Loudoun County junior Rachel Voketaitis answered with a kill off a quick set to the middle to spark the decisive 13-3 surge.

The run included kills from Voketaitis and Borup, an ace from senior Hannah Vandegrift, two blocks and multiple Colonel errors, including a pair of double-contact calls that did not sit well with Couturiaux and the James Wood faithful.

“I thought they were incredibly tight [on the double-contact calls],” said Couturiaux after each team was whistled seven times for the infraction. “A lot of the balls that we were digging have a lot of spin, so naturally the ball that [the setter’s] setting would have some spin. And any ball that had spin was called a double and I disagreed. I thought it was tight, especially in the state finals, you’ve got to let the girls play.”

A Colonel hitting error clinched the first set for Loudoun County, and the second set looked like it was going to be a runaway as well when the Raiders went on an 8-2 run to take a 12-5 lead following back-to-back James Wood misfires.

Loudoun County maintained its lead and had set point at 24-16, but the Colonels refused to go quietly.

Beginning with a kill from senior opposite Lindsey Painter (four kills and one block), James Wood scored four straight behind two aces from senior defensive specialist Savannah Yost and a kill from senior outside hitter Katie Houser (match-best 15 kills and eight digs) to cut the deficit to four and force the Raiders to call timeout.

“I thought Lindsey Painter had a great game for us offensively and there were girls who showed up,” said Houser, who set the single-season and career kill records for the James Wood this year and will play for the University of Notre Dame next fall. “But against a team with so many travel girls, the whole team has to be on. I think we just didn’t come up big when we needed to.”

Coming out of the timeout the Colonels thought they’d pulled to within 24-21 when a Loudoun County hit sailed long, but the head referee ruled that the ball had been touched by the James Wood block and awarded the set-clinching point to the Raiders despite heavy protest.

The turn of events seemed to linger into the third set as the Colonels watched Loudoun County score three straight to start and 11 of the first 14 points behind back-to-back blocks, a pair of kills from Voketaitis and another from Borup.

James Wood sophomore middle blocker Taylor Heishman slowed the run with a kill off a quick set from sophomore Megan Hillyard (16 assists) and senior libero Ally Iden (team-high 17 digs) got in on the scoring action with a short pass that landed between two Loudoun County defenders, but it wasn’t nearly enough as the Raiders clinched the set and the match when a Houser attack landed wide.

“Of course we would have liked to see a different outcome, but Loudoun County is a very good team. They’re just solid all the way around and very strong offensively,” Couturiaux said. “And their libero is incredible in serve receive and very strong defensively, and tonight they were the better team.”

The loss ends the most successful season ever for James Wood, which had never made it to the state finals before. The Colonels, who advanced to the state quarterfinals in 2012 and the state semifinals in 2013, will graduate seven seniors in Houser, Ashley Hillyard, Iden, Painter, Yost, Prelip and Lexi Copley, and will also be looking for a new coach after Couturiaux announced that she was stepping down during the postgame press conference.

“This is my last season at James Wood High School, my girls are aware of that. I’m putting being a mom first and I couldn’t imagine going out with any other group of seniors that have been with me since they were coming to camp when I think they were 12-years old,” said Couturiaux, who gave birth to her first child this past year.

“I told the girls that regardless of the outcome tonight, I am 100 percent so proud to be their coach. I’ve said before about them being my dream team, but it’s not just the way they play ball and their competitive spirit, but just the genuinely good people that these girls are. They’re smart, they’re genuinely kind to each other, they’re genuinely kind to others, they want to help out in the community. So I couldn’t ask for a better group of 14 players to finish my career with.

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

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