Western Albemarle’s chances at getting to 100 consecutive Jefferson District wins had a close call on Tuesday against Powhatan. In a battle of JD unbeatens facing visiting Fluvanna County, the first game and a half was as neck-and-neck as it gets and once again it appeared that the Warriors were in trouble. But after a few adjustments on offense, Western came alive in the second set to even up the match before closing out the next two games to earn a 3-1 victory over the Flucos, 24-26, 25-17, 25-15, 25-15.
“We were a little tight early on and I think our hitters were intimidated by the big block that Hannah Miller was putting up for them and got a little tenantive,” said Warriors coach Ron Pack. “I told them to look for smaller blockers and go there and pound over that way and see what we could do. We finally did that and I think that was the difference. We found our confidence after that.”
In the first set the largest difference was four points and Fluvanna held that advantage twice until Western raced back to tie the game at 21. The Flucos staved off the surge though, facing set-point three times before jumping back out to win 26-24.
“We’re having a heck of a season behind two seniors, two juniors, a sophomore and a freshman all starting,” said Fluvanna coach Christi Harlowe-Garret. “I thought we played hard, they played hard and it just fell their way. You want every game to be the same, but sometimes when you’re young, that’s just not going to be the case. Western’s a powerful hitting team and they played smart and found a few holes in the defense.”
The second set all but mirrored the start of the first with the game knotted up at 9. But an 9-3 run from Western behind the play of Maggie Kooken, Maggie Spindel and Laura Bergin gave the Warriors their first sizable lead of the match. Up 23-16, Fluvanna called a timeout to try and regroup but the Warriors did not falter to even up the match at one game a piece.
“They played really well and caught us early but we came together after the first game and pulled through for the next three,” said Western senior libero Marina Clark. “This win means so much and this group of seniors all feels the same way about it, about the legacy (this program) has right now.”
In the pivotal third set, once again it was close with both teams see-sawing to a tie at 12. Yet once again the Warriors survived on a series of lengthy points and going on a 13-3 run to gain the 2-1 advantage.
“Marina always does a great job on defense for us, and surprisingly, our middles, who don’t play much on the back row came up with some big plays too,” Pack said. “So I was really proud of the defensive effort.”
The last game of the night was Western’s strongest as it jumped out to an 8-4 lead. The Warriors never let the Flucos within striking distance after that and finished the job to emerge as the only team with a perfect JD record in tack after one full cycle of play.
The Warriors had three players reach double-digit kill totals with Kooken at 16, Spindel at 13 and Bergin at 12. Setter Lauren Reifsteck finished with 38 assists. Clark led the way on defense with 14 digs.
For the Flucos, Miller had an impressive 14 kill, six block showing, even with Western avoiding her. Leslie Walters had five blocks and two kills. Emily Haden, despite playing injured had six kills. Maddy Kilne added five kills.
Fluvanna (13-6, 4-1) hosts Louisa County on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
Western (12-3, 5-0) hosts Charlottesville also on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
