James Wood Volleyball Rallies For 3-1 Win Over Sherando

Posted: October 16, 2015
By ROBERT STOCKS
The Winchester Star

STEPHENS CITY — After dropping the opening set against Sherando, James Wood trailed in both the second and fourth sets against the Warriors, but the Colonels came up with the clutch points when it counted.

James Wood senior Emma Montgomery had a team-high 13 kills, and junior Leilani Burch added 10 kills and nine digs to lead the Colonels to a 3-1 (21-25, 26-24, 25-20, 27-25) Conference 21A volleyball victory to sweep the season series against Sherando.

While Montgomery and Burch led the way, the Colonels (12-4, 2-1 Conference 21A, 4-1 Northwestern District) got points from several players to pull out narrow victories in sets two and four.

James Wood overcame an early six-point deficit in the fourth set that featured 12 ties and nine lead changes.

Sherando senior Kelsey Singhas’ kill knotted it at 23 and she followed that with one of her four aces to give the Warriors a 24-23 advantage.

On set point for the Warriors, a net violation on Sherando’s Audra Smelser tied the match at 24, and James Wood senior Kirsten Mullin took over from there.

Mullin’s kill gave James Wood a 25-24 to send the Colonels to their first set point.

Sherando’s Alaina Paige kept the Warriors in it with a kill off the fingertips of James Wood’s front row players to even it at 25.

From there, Mullin closed it out with back-to-back kills, giving the Colonels a hard-fought road win.

“I think we played a lot more consistent than we normally do,” said Mullin, who had six kills and eight digs. “It was really exciting because we’re friends with a lot of [Sherando’s] players.

“We were pretty nervous coming over here. We knew we could beat them on our own court but we didn’t know how it would go over here.”

It went the Colonels’ way once again in part because of how balanced James Wood’s attack and defensive effort was.

Six James Wood players had at least six kills and a trio of Colonels made at least eight digs. Junior libero Elizabeth Salata led James Wood with 15 digs and Burch and Mullin nearly joined her in double figures.

James Wood first-year coach Stephen Reaves said he was pleased with how well his players battled, capping a nine-game week that already included a five-set win at Handley.

“We could show improvement but in the end we won several amazing games that were tight and my kids finished,” said Reaves. “We definitely have that strength and we finished well.”

Sherando (9-5, 3-1 conference, 2-3 district) definitely had its chances, particularly in tightly contested second set that featured 13 ties and seven lead changes.

The Warriors led by as many as three twice, taking a 15-12 advantage after an errant hit by the Colonels.

From there however, the score was knotted nine more times but the Warriors had a chance to close out the set after back-to-back aces by Kelsie Utz put Sherando ahead 24-22.

An errant hit by the Warriors on set point kept James Wood in it, and Colonels freshman Taylor Robinson followed with a kill to knot the match at 24 for the 13th and final time.

A hitting violation by the Warriors gave James Wood set point, and Robinson’s third kill in the setclosed it out at 26-24 win for Wood.

While Robinson had three of her seven kills in the pivotal second set, Burch led the way with four kills and Morgan Biggs (six total kills) and Montgomery added two kills apiece.

Burch said pulling out the second set gave the team a much-needed lift.

“It was so important to keep our momentum even with them,” Burch said. “When you get down two sets it’s really hard to come back so the fact that we kept up in the second set and was able to pull that momentum back up for us is what really helped us stay in the game. I don’t know if the match would’ve gone the same way if we lost that second set.”

After three early ties in the third set, James Wood pulled away after Sherando made four straight attack errors followed by a kill from Montgomery that put the Colonels ahead 12-6.

Singhas, who had a match-high 17 kills, cut the deficit down to one after her kill made it 18-17, but that was as close as the Warriors could get. Montgomery and Biggs combined for four of the Colonels’ final five points with a pair of kills apiece to help Wood close out a 25-20 win in set three.

Sherando coach James Minney credited James Wood for pulling out the victory, particularly in sets two and four when his team had set point.

“We just can’t finish,” said Minney, who noted Thursday’s match was very similar to the Warriors loss by the same score at James Wood on Sept. 29. “... We played really good defense considering teams are just slamming balls on us all the time. Eventually, you’ve got to have offense and we just don’t have the offense right now to compete with that.”

The Colonels’ height and firepower proved to be too much. James Wood 6-foot-1 junior Taylor Heishman, who had seven kills, and the 5-foot-11 Montgomery combined for 20 kills. Add in Robinson, Burch, Mullin and Biggs and the Colonel hitters combined for 49 kills. James Wood junior setter Megan Hillyard — who slid on the floor to keep the ball alive on multiple occasions — kept the points flowing with 43 assists.

“It’s always harder when we’re away,” Burch said. “It’s good that we were able to pull it out away at their gym.

“We did really good at pulling it together because there were a lot of points where our momentum was down. Even if the score didn’t seem that different, we could feel it on the court but we learned to pull together and we picked each other up and pulled it out. It shows what we can do and hopefully we can pull it off against Millbrook, too.”

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