Colonels fall in 3

September 3, 2010

By Robert Stocks
The Winchester Star       

WINCHESTER- Home openers don't get much tougher than what the James Wood High School's volleyball team faced Thursday night against Musselman.

The Applemen return all six of their starters from a team that reached the West Virginia Class AAA state quarterfinals last year, and based on their season debut, they appear poised for another tournament run.

Musselman sophomore Corisha Smith had 15 kills, and junior Taylor Allen added 10 to lead Musselman to a 3-0 (25-22, 25-15, 25-23) victory over Wood at Donald H. Shirley Gymnasium. "I was telling my assistant coach that being able to scout them kind of offset the fact that they had a couple matches under their belt," said Applemen coach Shawn Martz, who had a chance to see the Colonels beat Strasburg last week. "We're not a huge team. We've got a few decent-sized kids, but we play a lot bigger than we are."

While the 6-foot Smith and 5-10 Allen led Musselman's front line, the duo of libero Samantha Deter (19 digs) and setter Taylor Oates (30 assists) neutralized many of the Colonels' attack attempts.

"I told my girls there's really not a whole lot flashy about them, but they're the most consistent team we'll see all season," James Wood coach Jill Lester said. "They're one of the strongest teams [we'll see] on defense. They got a lot of balls up. They didn't put a whole lot of blocks up, but they touch a lot of balls on defense. That's frustrating to a team when you're trying to put the ball away."

Neither team led by more than three points in the opening set, but Musselman closed it out with a 5-0 run thanks to a kill by senior Emily Funkhouser and four service points from Allen.

"We definitely had a hard time making a run tonight," Lester said. "We'd sideout, they'd get the ball right back, and they'd score three points and we just couldn't make a run tonight."

James Wood (2-1) fell behind by five early in the second set, but the Colonels cut the deficit to 8-7.

Musselman responded with an 8-1 run, getting a pair of kills and a block from Allen, and also a kill and a block by senior Shayla Bartles to pull ahead 16-8.

The Colonels never cut the deficit to less than six from there.

Musselman handled James Wood's attack throughout with Deter seemingly digging everything and getting the ball to Oates to set up another attack.

"We've got a really good defensive team," Martz said. "The kids read their hitters really well, and for our size, I thought we got a lot of good touches on the block to help our defense."

Martz said Smith, whose older brother is West Virginia University place kicker Corey Smith, really sparked the team with her play at the net.

"Just in the first two sets she had 10 kills," Martz said. "She hit .533 in the first two sets - that's pretty dominant."

Musselman survived an early 3-0 deficit and then five ties in the third set.

The Colonels reeled off three straight points, getting kills from Emily Shannon and Peyton Clark and then an ace by Megan Crabtree to tie it 22-22.

But a service error by Crabtree followed by an errant hit by Shannon set up match point for Musselman.

Shannon cut the deficit to 24-23 with one of her team-high nine kills, but after a time out by Musselman, Allen closed out the match with a kill.

"Their defense was really good, so we had a tough time killing the ball," said Crabtree, who had a team-high six aces. "They got all the balls up. Even when they had broken plays, they still consistently got the ball over the net, so it was pretty tough to put the ball down."

The Colonels stayed with Musselman in two of the three sets, and Lester said her team can build on the defeat.

"Losing is not necessarily a bad thing," Lester said. "Our weaknesses showed tonight, and now we know what we have to work on in practice to prepare for our district matches. We'll take this loss and learn from it and work on some things before our first district match next week.

"We need to work on our passing and terminating after a broken play. We played really good defense. We had some really great ups, but we'd make a great dig and then we'd hit the ball in the net - that can't happen."

Shannon led James Wood with 19 digs, and Hannah Tierney added a team-high nine blocks. Junior setter Eleanor Kent led the Colonels with 12 assists.

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