Millbrook Eliminates James Wood In Conference 21A Volleyball

Posted: November 3, 2015
By JERRY HOLSWORTH
Special to The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER —It took Millbrook less than an hour to sweep James Wood in the opening round of the Conference 21A volleyball tournament 25-21, 25-6, 25-11.

The win sets up a semifinal match between the No. 4-seed Pioneers (20-3) and top-seeded Woodgrove at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Woodgrove. The winner will play for the conference championship on Thursday.

“If we play like we played tonight, we’re definitely able to beat Woodgrove on Wednesday,” Pioneer hitter Taylor Linder said. “We just have to be on, like we were tonight.”

For the fifth-seeded Colonels it was a disappointing end of their season.

“We didn’t play very well, and that was pretty obvious,” Wood coach Stephen Reaves said. “Our game plan was to attack them from the middle, and we just didn’t get that going tonight.”

The first set looked anything like the lopsided match it would become as both teams battled fiercely from start to finish.

Through the first 16 exchanges Millbrook held a close lead. But with the Pioneers leading 8-7, Abigail Koeller scored on a hard kill, and Elizabeth Carroll stepped to the service line.

Before the Millbrook setter lost service, the Pioneers, thanks primarily to a strong performance by Linder, had a commanding 13-8 lead. The 4-0 run was the result of three straight blistering kills by Linder.

The Pioneers maintained the five-point lead (17-12). Two hard kills by Linder and Koeller followed before a kill by Jessica Putnam finally got Wood (14-7) the serve trailing 20-13.

The Colonels closed to 20-16 thanks to kills by Megan Hillyard and Elizabeth Salata.

A service error — the Colonels had six in the set — ended the Wood run. With Millbrook leading 23-18, the Colonels rallied again. A kill and block by Taylor Heishman narrowed the Pioneer lead to 23-21, but another service error and a long return ended the comeback.

After such a feisty rally to end the first set, it looked like the Colonels were ready to tie the match in the second set.

Millbrook had other plans.

“It was really intense out there,” Millbrook hitter Imani Major said. “We knew that we needed to come out and play our best, especially with Wood. We knew that they’d come in here fired up.”

The Pioneers took the fire out of the Colonels early in the second set.

It began with two straight kills by Linder. Carroll followed with a pair of aces to power the Pioneer run. Millbrook didn’t give up serve until it led 8-0.

“We were really communicating well, and everyone was moving well,” Linder said. “Everything we were doing to begin the second set was working, and they didn’t seem to be able to handle it. I think that run really shut them down for the night.”

When the Colonels eventually got serve, the Pioneers answered with a kill by Emily Cleveland that began another 8-0 run that put Millbrook ahead 16-1.

It was Linder again who provided the offensive punch scoring on three aces.

“We just did the same thing that we try to do in every match,” Millbrook coach Carla Milton said. “We want to push hard for points, and keep our heads. We also want to give our hitters a chance to hit the ball, and doing that really contributed to us getting that huge lead.”

The lead was insurmountable as the Pioneers cruised 25-6.

“I think that we just started playing solid volleyball to begin the second set,” Major said. “We knew what we wanted to do with the volleyball. It was just a matter of taking control of the match.”

Millbrook rode the momentum to a 4-1 lead in the third set and never looked back.

Three other Pioneers joined Linder in providing offense for Millbrook in the final set. Major smashed four kills past the Colonel defense, and also scored on three aces. Savanna Pearson contributed three kills in the set, and Koeller had two kills and a block.

Major finished off Wood for good with back-to-back aces.

Linder finished the night with 11 kills, and four aces. Major added nine kills and three aces. Koeller had five kills and two blocks for Millbrook.

“This was a very satisfying win.” Linder said. “We were really ready for this game, and were very excited to play tonight.”

Heishman led James Wood with four kills and a block.

“This was a really good team effort tonight,” Milton said. “We spread out the points, and everyone contributed in some way. That’s what we want every night. Woodgrove is going to be a tough match. They’re a solid volleyball team, and we’re going to have to be on our A-plus game to beat them.”