It was almost like two different matches within a match. In the first two games into Albemarle’s Northwest Region quarterfinal showdown with Heritage, the Patriots had little trouble handling the Pride. But the second two games were a different story.
“After the first few games I think we thought we had it wrapped up,” said Patriots senior Hannah Lawson. “Honestly, that was kind of typical of us, and I wouldn’t say we got cocky, but we just started to relax a little too much.”
And if that was the case, Heritage was all over it. After dropping the third game, Albemarle went down to the wire with the Pride in game four, but behind the leadership of their three senior starters and some clutch hitting, the Patriots were able to pick up the hard fought win, 3-1, 25-16, 25-22, 20-25, 26-24.
“Games one and two, we had everything going for us,” said Albemarle coach Mark Ragland. “But games three and four, boy that was a struggle. That’s the thing about volleyball. Sometimes you can change into a different team. Heritage, I want to give them a lot of credit because they stepped their game up. They had a lot of good swings early on and just weren’t clicking. But they started clicking and we starting making errors and it became a contest real quick.”
In the first two games, the Patriots jumped out to sizeable leads and never trailed. But that changed in game three. Heritage come out strong and got out in front of Albemarle by five points and fought off a pair of comebacks to hold on and avoid the sweep.
The fourth and final game was the tightest of the bunch. Albemarle took a small but early lead but saw that reversed midway through 16-14. From that point on it was a point-for-point match until the Patriots were able tie the game at 22 behind the offensive firepower of Lawson.
Albemarle then won three of the next four points and was able to move on.
Perhaps the Patriots’ biggest enemy during the contest was the endline official’s red flag. Albemarle struggled to serve, particularly in games three and four, but also watched more than a handful of solid hits land just out of bounds.
“We were picking horrible times not to be able to serve,” Ragland said. “And then we were picking horrible times to hit, everything was going out of bounds or getting blocked. But I was proud of the team for regaining their composure in that fourth game and stepping it up.”
According to Lawson, allowing the Pride to push the Patriots to five games was simply something the team would not allow.
“During that fourth game a lot of people were really determined,” Lawson said. “Almost everyone was saying ‘Hey, we are not losing this game.’”
Lawson wound up finishing the game with 15 kills. Her junior counterparts, Megan Napolitano and Stephanie Strauss, also had big games as they each finished with 10 kills. Hendrix led the game with 35 assists. And defensively, Meg Carpenter was her usual reliable self, coming up with eight digs.
The Patriots will host either Osbourn Park or Patrick Henry on Thursday in the Northwest Region semifinals. A victory then would give Albemarle, the defending Group AAA champions, a bid for the state tournament.
“We are pumped,” Hendrix said. “We’re ready to win. We played Patrick Henry last year and if we do play them again this year I think we know what to expect from them. But either way we’re pumped and we’re ready to go. We’re ready to try and get back to states again.”
