By Allen Kha/ Scrimmageplay.com Contributor
RICHMOND— Ask Nelson County girl’s volleyball players whether they expected to compete at VCU’s Siegel Center for the VHSL Group A, Division 2 volleyball championship prior to the start of the season, and they would give a good laugh.
Twenty-nine games later, ask them whether they expected to win the Division A volleyball championship at the Siegel Center in front of a raucous crowd of nearly 1,000 spectators, and they would say that doing that would be surreal.
The Governors, however, did just that Saturday, rallying from one game down to defeat championship-game opponent Mathews 3-1 (21-25, 25-23, 25-20, 25-21).
“Our goal at the beginning of the season was to make the postseason. Once we played in our opening tournament, however, we realized that we had something special,” Nelson County coach Vicki Crawford said.
Nelson started out jittery in the first game, committing numerous unforced errors and three service errors to propel Mathews to a victory in the match’s first game. The Blue Devils were also able to contain Nelson’s prolific junior outside hitter Ashley Wells, using middle hitter Madison McCann at the net to counter Wells’ spike attempts.
“Ashley was struggling in game one. She was getting eaten up with the block and we made a few adjustments [going into game two]. We knew if [senior setter Keona Loving] gave it to her a little bit higher and further outside, that Ashley could out-jump that blocker,” Crawford said.
“They were going after us, attacking, and I had to call a timeout or two and tell them … if we would be aggressive, we would be fine. They battled hard and their intensity and their focus and their determination to do what they were supposed to do was amazing.”
With the tactical adjustment, Wells finished with a match-high 23 kills and helped secure the championship for Nelson.
“Once Ashley was making those kills towards specific [Mathews] players, you could tell they were unsure of themselves,” Nelson’s junior middle blocker Madison Carter said.
Wells added: “I tried to hit different spots instead of swinging right into the block and it helped my team out a lot. I saw that some of their players were unsure of what to do when I started hitting it towards them, so I just kept on doing that. We were setting the ball up, passing better and it just seemed like we were ready to win.”
A pivotal moment in the match occurred in the second game — tied at 20-20 — when Nelson’s senior outside hitter Erika Toliver crashed into the press table while trying to make a sliding dig save.
“She was limping around, but I thought she had a lot of courage to come back,” said Crawford. “She begged me not to take her out of the game, so I did not, and she was amazing.”
Using inspired efforts from Toliver and senior libero Brittany Crawford — who Crawford noted sacrificed her body to make a tremendous amount of digs — the Governors rallied from a 12-6 second-game deficit to win the remaining games.
Toliver finished the match with 14 kills, while Carter finished the match with six kills.
