James Wood serves its way past Handley

WINCHESTER — James Wood volleyball head coach Adrienne Patrick felt her team's energy level wasn't as high as it normally is on Tuesday night.

But with the help of a vocal group of seven girls ages 6 to 8 cheering them on, the Colonels never seemed to be in danger of falling flat.

After pulling away late to win a tight first game, the Colonels dominated the final two sets to beat the Judges 25-17, 25-7, 25-7 in a Class 4 Northwestern District match at their Shirley Gymnasium to continue their perfect season.

Following its first five-set match of the year against North Hagerstown (Md.) on Monday, James Wood (19-0, 11-0 district) earned its 16th sweep of the season, including their second of the Judges (7-12, 2-9).

The win set up an opportunity to clinch the district regular-season title and a Region 4C tournament berth. The Colonels can achieve that by beating Millbrook (18-1, 10-1) at home on Thursday.

The young girls were members of the Frederick County Parks & Recreation Hawkeyes volleyball team, which is guided by former Handley head coach Lindsay Cole. Cole asked Patrick if the girls — each of whom was dressed in yellow uniform shirts — could be recognized by having their names read over the public address system as they stood in front of the James Wood players before the match.

The children then made their way to the bleachers, standing up and yelling "Let's go Colonels!" as often as possible.

"We're just encouraging the youth about next-level volleyball," said Patrick, who noted that the girls play on a low net and aren't allowed to make overhead hits or serves. "Doing things like that just creates more of a passion and potential growth in the community. That's why I'm here."

Patrick also noted that the young girls wanted the varsity players to sign their jerseys afterward.

Freshman Brenna Corbin said it was good to see their enthusiasm.

"That was really great that they came," she said. "It was a good experience for them."

James Wood wasn't sharp at the outset, committing five attack errors in building up a 17-14 lead. But Ashlynn Spence (three blocks for the match) and Ellla Kelchner (two) each had blocks in a 5-0 run that ended with a Lexi Taylor ace. Kelchner would end the set on a dink kill.

After that, Handley struggled on the attack (12 errors in the last two sets) and with serve receive.

Taylor (six aces), Carsyn Vincent (four aces, eight digs), Hannah McCullough (13 assists, four aces) and Izzy Turner (three aces) and Corbin (two aces) combined for 19 James Wood aces, and there were four other serves that the Judges couldn't return over the net.

"Our serve receive has been really strong for the last couple of matches," Handley coach Kristen Larson said. "That's really not where we've been struggling, so it was a little unexpected tonight that it wasn't as strong as it has been. It starts with a good pass, and we getting not as good of passes as we're used to."

The Colonels jumped out to leads of 15-2 in the second and 12-2 in the third. Kennedy Spaid had five of her match-high 11 kills in the third set for James Wood. The Colonels were also led by Paige Ahakuelo (10 assists overall).

Tuesday's match was much different than Monday's for the Colonels. After James Wood (Set 1) and North Hagerstown (Set 2) each won by 27-25 scores, the Hubs had James Wood on the ropes by beating the Colonels 25-10 in third set to take a 2-1 lead. James Wood responded with 25-10 and 17-15 wins in the last two sets.

The Colonels feel the match should help them as they prepare to make what they hope will be a deep postseason run.

"I think it was good to get the amount of competition we deserve this season," Taylor said. "We've had a bunch of good competition, especially playing Millbrook, but I think playing hard hitters and a pretty good defense was really good for us to experience. I have a feeling our [postseason] road is going to be pretty long."

Patrick said the Colonels nearly let a large fifth set lead slip away, but they fought to beat a talented squad.

"We were truly tested," Patrick said. "That was a true adversity match where we have to figure out how to dig deep and come together. What do we need, where are our open shots. They were extremely aggressive team to play against. The perseverance was great."

Larson feels Handley has shown improvement of late. On Oct. 6, the Judges became the only district team besides James Wood and Millbrook to beat Fauquier.

"When we play together, we play really well," Lawson said. "I've seen a lot of the togetherness. That's something that we've talked a lot about this year so that leads us forward in the coming years."

The Judges were led by Lindsay Pifer (seven digs, six kills, two blocks), Yoana Katrandzhiyska (10 digs) and Alexa Gluszak (six digs). Handley will host Sherando on Thursday.

Also during the pregame, relatives of Katie Teets Bradshaw were on hand to receive a check of $18,000 that had been raised from the Colonels' "Volley for a Cure." James Wood raised money for the Katie Teets Bradshaw Comfort House, a non-profit organization formed to build a facility near Winchester Medical Center where dying people can spend their final days surrounded by loved ones in a home-like setting rather than the clinical confines of a hospital.

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

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