By Jimmy LaRoue / Scrimmageplaycva.com contributor
Katie Rossberg did her best to hide the tears.
After Western Albemarle’s 3-1 loss at Jamestown (23-25, 25-23, 15-25, 23-25) in the Group AA state quarterfinal volleyball match Tuesday, the senior captain buried her head behind the padded umpire’s stand for several minutes.
Many of her teammates, too, were in tears after the end to their 24-8 season against a 26-4 Jamestown team which won the Region I title and will now face Hidden Valley Friday at the Siegel Center in Richmond in a Group AA state semifinal.
Western won the Jefferson District regular season and tournament titles, and finished as the Region II runner-up to powerhouse Loudoun County (27-1).
Jamestown junior outside hitter Briana Sutton, who had a match-high 18 kills, said the Warriors were the best team she has seen all season, and though the Eagles were nervous going into the match, they benefited from internet video footage of the Warriors to help understand patterns and personnel.
“We knew what they were doing, but we didn’t know how hard they were going to go against us because we watched them play against opponents who maybe weren’t as high-caliber as us,” said Sutton, who received Bay Rivers District and Region I player of the year honors. “I didn’t expect them to be as good. They really picked it up. Our team isn’t really used to playing teams that good, and I’m really surprised. I’m really glad we won.”
Besides Sutton’s stellar night, Monica St. Cyr had 43 assists, while Kelly Esch and Natalie Esch added 11 and 10 kills, respectively.
Senior setter Riley Martin led Western with 36 assists, two blocks and two aces. Rossberg had 14 kills and two aces, while junior hitter Laura Bergin had 11 kills. Junior outside hitter Maggie Kooken and sophomore middle Maggie Spindel each had six kills.
“We wanted to hit the ball into some deep corners in the gap between their back,” said Jamestown coach Tom Stephenson. “We wanted to keep the ball away from their libero (Marin Crowder), because their libero’s really good. We knew that [Rossberg] was their best hitter.
“We were trying to attack and serve and take their setter out of their offense, so that somebody else would have to step in and set a ball to an outside instead of their middle. We did that some, not as much as we wanted to. And to their credit, their ball-control, I thought, was really good.”
The Eagles’ studious note-taking paid dividends, but it couldn’t factor Western’s heart and effort in keeping the match close.
Stephenson compared Western favorably to 2010 Group AAA champions Kellam, a team the Eagles lost to early in the season. He said the Warriors were the best defensive team, and the best team outside of Kellam, that the Eagles have gone up against all season.
“I would say defensively, that’s by far the best team we’ve played all year,” Stephenson said. “Their defense was outstanding.”
That was little consolation in the immediate aftermath of the loss for Western, particularly for the seniors – Martin, Crowder, Emma Trentanove and Rossberg – who all played their last high school volleyball match.
“It’s a tough loss,” said Western coach Jena McFaddin. “A tough loss, hard for our seniors.”
The two teams battled evenly in game one, with Western jumping out to a 13-8 lead before the host Eagles rallied for seven consecutive points–and nine of the next 10 points overall – behind two kills from sophomore outside hitter Kelly Esch and two more from senior outside hitter Becca Schroeder.
Exchanging brief rallies, Western closed to within 24-23 before Jamestown closed out the game on the next point with a Sutton kill.
Game two played out in similar fashion, with the teams tied on eight different occasions. Jamestown, though, held small leads for much of the game until the two teams were tied at 19-19.
Jamestown capitalized on two Western errors to take a two-point lead before the two teams were tied again at 23-23, but two defensive errors from Jamestown allowed Western to escape with the game two win.
With help from Jamestown’s seven seniors, the Eagles were able to refocus and regroup.
“My seniors … just got together and said, ‘Hey guys, we’ve worked too hard all year long to lose our composure, so let’s just refocus and go out there and do what we’ve been doing all year long,’” Stephenson said. “And in that third game, they really jumped out and stayed out in that one.”
The Eagles dominated game three, racing out to a 15-6 lead and were never seriously threatened, taking it 25-15.
Western and Jamestown went deep into game four even. The two squads were tied on nine separate occasions, the last at 19-19 before Jamestown pulled ahead. Natalie Esch closed out the match with an ace, ending the game 25-23 and ending Western’s season.
For Jamestown, the win represents its first state semifinal berth since 2001, when it was the Group AA runners-up.
For Western’s four seniors, it ends an incredible run and a reversal of last season’s misfortune against Freedom in the Region II quarterfinals. Martin, a four-year starter for the Warriors, ends her career as the school’s most decorated setter while Rossberg and Crowder both made the All-Region II team. But those accomplishments didn’t take the sting out of the defeat.
“We wanted to come in and win,” McFaddin said. “We wanted to execute the game plan we had, and we didn’t. [It was] a tough way to go.”
