Western Albemarle fell just once during the regular season, and the team that handed the Warriors their only loss was the two-time defending Group AA champs, Loudoun County. Western got a second look at the Raiders on Saturday in the Region II finals, but weren’t able to produce a different result, as behind their significantly taller front line, Loudoun was able to take home the victory, 3-0, 25-11, 25-18, 25-22.
“Yeah we like to grow them tall up in Leesburg,” said Raiders co-coach Jarod Brown of the three different 6-footers he plays up front. “We have a lot of size and were able to use that to our advantage. And Western Albemarle is a little undersized, but man, they’ve got some athletic girls over their.”
The Raiders came strong in the first game and put Western in an 11-point hole midway though that the Warriors couldn’t climb out of.
“You try to get matchups that you can take advantage of but your defenders often find themselves defending against balls that are hit over the block and that’s really difficult,” said Warriors coach Lance Rogers of his team’s game plan.. “But (Loudoun is) also very quick and that’s a deadly combination.”
In the next two games, Western avoided shaky starts and, as such, it was able to keep pace with Loudoun. In game two, Western took an early three point lead but saw that slip away as the Raiders went on a late 10-2 run to claim the lead. Western cut the lead to four points, but the Raiders quickly pumped their lead back up to seven and took a 2-0 lead.
The third game was closest between the two. Once again Western was able to establish a three-point lead in the early going, however this time they allowed Loudoun to reel off a big run. The two teams exchanged points from that point on until the very end when the Raiders were able to build a three-point lead. Western cut the lead to one point, but Loudoun was able to hold on and wrap up the win.
“We are going to take from this the lessons we need to learn,” Rogers said. “I thought we didn’t take advantage of some opportunities and made way too many unforced errors to play at this level. I think we come away from this match having that point hammered into our skulls.”
For Loudoun, Molly Baldwin led the team with eight kills while University of New Mexico-bound Juliane Hanna had five kills, nine digs and five aces. Libero Gabby Serafin led all players with 13 digs.
For Western, Sarah Harper had a game-high 14 kills to go along with her 11 digs. Megan Adams put up 12 assists and eight digs. Elizabeth Via also had eight digs.
The Warriors clinched a birth in the Group AA tournament on Thursday night when they beat Sherando 3-1. Western will face Graffton on Tuesday at 7 p.m. and Rogers thinks his team’s second loss of the season will help to refocus his team.
“We need to go to Graffton and play as well as we should have here tonight,” Rogers said. “This should snap things back into focus for us. Although we’ve had a tough couple of (Jefferson) District matches and some out of district matches, we have not played another team like Loudoun County.”
