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Madison volleyball takes down Monroe in four sets

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Madison County battled. They did so in the first set to pull away late, and despite facing slim odds in the third set, the Mountaineers tried to rally from behind for the sweep. While that didn’t happen, what did was that the late momentum carried over into the fourth. That was too much for William Monroe, as in three of the four games saw, once Madison got a firm grip on the lead, they held it. As such, the Moutaineers walked away with a 3-1 win on the road against their sworn Bull Run District rival, 25-21, 25-17, 20-25, 25-17.

 

“Our girls get so pumped up to play William Monroe, it’s a big border battle and they were determined to not to lose which you love as a coach,” said Madison coach Carrie Brown. “I preached to them to make sure they got their serve in, keep the feet moving and defensively to say low. We wanted to make (Monroe) work and play smart. We’re did a good job of that. We keep working on that in practice and we played like we practiced.”

 

It was struggle early with the gym hyped behind both student sections, locked at 10-10 in the first set. Madison established a 20-17 lead and was able to get up 23-18 before putting things away for the ever important first set victory.

 

“We just really tried to adjust with what we were working with,” said Madison senior libero Samantha Breeden. “It’s a lower ceiling, we needed to absorb it, we worked on covering each other. We covered, we never let anyone down. We made sure nobody hung their head once tonight.”

 

In the second, things were close early at 4-4 but an 8-2 run gave Madison a comfortable edge. Capitalizing on long rallies behind their defense, the Mountaineers were able to turn a 18-13 lead into a 6-3 run to close out the win and set up the third set.

 

Monroe might have struggled with errors, but their 10-2 run in the third set to make it 11-5 was the best they played all night. Madison rallied with a 10-3 run response to cut the lead to 18-17. However, the Dragons held serve and won seven on the least 10 points to force a fourth set.

 

“That set we got our serves in a got some momentum going,” said Monroe coach Ken Lawson. “It was little stuff like that for us. Our back line was great all night, passing was pretty good but we just didn’t finish up front. I think that’s why we lost tonight. We were just hitting it into the net, not doing anything offensively consistently.”

 

The rally by Madison in what looked to be a wash of a third set carried over into the fourth. The Mountaineers took a 4-0 lead, then went up quickly 15-8. From there, Monroe could not catch up, remaining seven points behind most of the way in a trade of points before Madison shut the door for good.

 

“We came in hyped and ready all night and had a little team meeting before (the fourth set) and said we could take our lead and go home with it,” Breeden said.

 

On the night. Grace Fox led the service attack with an impressive 10 aces. Alexa Waga had 11 kills and seven blocks. Jeana Grace Kelliher had six kills. Breeden had 24 digs. Makenna Santinga had six kills and 17 assists.

 

“This was a big deal for us,” Breeden said. “It feels like we’ve been talking about it all season and our student section was there for us tonight. They all showed up in the parking lot at 6 p.m. and that was big for us. To pick up the win and meet them, that was great for us.”

 

For Monroe, Jordan Shortridge had seven kills and four aces. Mary Whitmarsh had nine kills. Lauren Clark had 23 serves returned and five digs. Alexis Lam had 19 assists.

 

Monroe (1-7) hosts Goochland on Monday while Madison (5-7) hosts Warren County on Tuesday.

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