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Western locks up state berth

Western Albemarle’s Sarah Harper was back to full strength – and she was as good as ever.

Harper, whose teammate Brittney Wagner put together a big-time performance Tuesday in the Region II quarterfinals with Harper sidelined by sickness, stepped back into her usual key role, dominating all aspects of the game with a 16-kill, 19-dig performance as Western punched its ticket to the state tournament with a 3-1 victory over Sherando in the Region II semifinals.

The Warriors seemed even more confident than they did in their first Region tournament contest, a 3-0 win over Fauquier. That was partially a product of winning largely without the services of Harper in the first round, but the confidence and calm mostly came from Harper being back in the lineup. .

“You can sense that the whole team takes a big sigh of relief, ‘oh, okay Sarah’s here now, things will be okay’,” said Western coach Lance Rogers. “Which is obviously not necessarily the case, we can win without her, but it’s great to have her back.”

Elizabeth Via was certainly confident—the senior libero put together a critical performance at the service line that included seven aces. She kept Sherando off balance all night preventing the visitors from staying within their system on a number of occasions.

Via also put together 14 digs, pairing with Harper to cover nearly the entire back line.

“It’s like a double anchor back there—when they’re handling the ball we’re all pretty comfortable,” Rogers said.

Western jumped out to a 1-0 lead on the strength of Harper’s well-rounded play and a Via ace that closed out the frame 25-17. An error-prone second game followed that early win. Sherando put together a 9-1 run to even the match and erase an 18-14 deficit and win 25-19.

The Warriors bounced back in game two with three of Via’s aces giving Western a 10-5 lead early before a 25-17 win. Game three was a runaway, with Harper and Ana Asher sparking Western to a 21-9 lead that led to a 25-14 victory.

Asher finished with seven kills while Kristen Pack finished with six kills. Riley Martin and Megan Adams split the setting duties as usual and Martin finished with 16 assists and Adams notched 14.

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