Albemarle volleyball needed one more win to clinch the 2019 Jefferson District title. The Patriots also need some high quality competition leading into the postseason.
Albemarle got both Wednesday night while christening Albemarle’s newly completed gym floor with a 3-0 victory over Western Albemarle that was closer than the sweep would indicate.
“It’s nice to win and battle especially when you’re not technically as sound as you’d like to be,” said Albemarle coach Mark Ragland. “We did a lot of things wrong but were able to overcome that because our kids bounced back and were tough on the floor.”
Adalee Lynch powered the Albemarle attack with 18 kills as part of a monster night where she also had 10 digs. Lynch squared off on most of her kill attempts against a friend, Western Albemarle’s Caity Driver. The battle between the Warriors’ middle and Lynch was the game within the game. Driver finished with nine kills and 1.5 blocks, but more importantly, she forced Lynch to adapt to her presence. Lynch made some needed adjustments to come up with those 18 kills.
“I know she’s going to be there on most of the blocks unfortunately for me,” Lynch said. “Yesterday in practice we worked on finding the angles they weren’t setting up, just really trying to watch where the blockers were on each hit was really important but very difficult tonight.”
All three games were seesaw battles, and played out remarkably similar, with Western going up 13-10, 13-9 and 13-9 in the separate games. Each time, Albemarle (20-3, 10-0 JD) surged back to pull off the win, getting a variety of different contributions during those surges to close the door on the Warriors. In game one, a Lainey Haas ace and two Maya Winterhoff kills down the stretch sparked the Pats to a 25-23 win. In game two, Annabelle Townsend had a key kill to push the lead to 24-21 and Western couldn’t return an Albemarle attack after closing to 24-23. In game three, Lynch was dominant down the stretch, blasting three of her 18 kills to close out a 25-21 win.
Albemarle was resilient throughout, never getting phased by the Warriors’ significant leads, reeling them back in each and every time. A pretty healthy familiarity between the two lineups helped make that possible as well, built from years of matchups and exposure on the club volleyball circuit.
“We know their tactics, we know what they’re going to,” said Albemarle senior Kendall Gray. “Obviously it’s a huge honor to beat them. Coming in with so much fire and just playing with our heart was such a big thing.”
Olivia Turner managed to finish with 28 assists at the setter spot despite the fact that the Patriots never really got in sync on the passing front.
“Our passing had periods where it would go straight on us and where the ball was located was tough with our hitters,” Ragland said. “And our hitters were not turning on balls, they were hitting into the block.”
For Albemarle, Keira Roach had 10 digs, Maggie Weber had a team high 15 digs, and Winterhoff had 12 kills and 3 blocks.
Western Albemarle refused to go away at any time in the match, a rare situation where a team could get swept after forcing an opponent to five games in the first meeting and still feel like they’d taken a step forward. That’s in large part because the defense of Amber Parker and Amelia Nichols was top notch, with Parker notching 19 digs while Nichols had another eight against a usually explosive Albemarle offense.
“I thought it was fantastic volleyball on both sides of the net, I’m really proud of our girls, I thought we put up a strong defense, a big block and we were digging them,” said Western coach Julie Radlinski. “I felt like it could’ve gone either way, it was a really strong battle for us.”
Brooke Chavez had eight kills for the Warriors while Annabella Pandelli had 25 assists and four aces. Sarah Rhea and Katie Carter each had 1.5 blocks with Rhea also chipping in three aces.
Albemarle will face Charlottesville Thursday night while the Warriors will travel to take on Orange, also on Thursday.
