Winners of the Jefferson District regular season tournament, Western Albemarle was the only team coming into the JD tournament semifinals not having to win or go home. That true postseason feeling is still a week away for the Warriors, but in a 3-0 win over Monticello (25-22, 25-16, 25-17), Western, set itself up for a potential 10th straight JD regulars season and tournament sweep.
“The girls know that these are last matches before we go into the really tough stuff,” said Western coach Jena McFaddin who was honored as the JD coach of the year after the win. “Thursday, I know that it doesn’t technically matter if we win, but it still matters to us and we need to use this next match as a spring point to regionals.”
The top-ranked team coming into the tournament, Western was tested by Monticello but stood its ground behind its outstanding defensive play and varied offense up front. In game one, the Warriors built up a 4-point lead at 10-6 only to double it at 18-10 to establish control. Monticello’s Mariah Williams, Charlotte Devine and Brittany Scott found a rhythm though and cut the Western lead down to two points at 22-20.
“I thought we passed the ball really well tonight, and they’re a great defensive team so we just wanted to keep them on their toes as much as we could,” said Monticello coach John Mitchem.
That was as close as the Warriors allowed the Mustangs to get most of the night as the closed out game one by winning three of the last five points.
In game two Western took five of the first six points to build another early lead, but Monticello was able to keep it close through the midway point at 15-13. Western cruised from there though as Katie Rossberg and Maggie Kooken dominated play upfront and helped their team to take a 2-0 advantage by finishing the game on a 10-3 run.
“We’re really just trying to execute on every single play and really stay on our fundamentals,” Kooken said. “We all work really well together, especially on defense, so things have been running pretty smooth.”
An early 4-point lead for Western was stretched to nine at 19-10 in the third and final set. Monticello was able to get no close than within six points of the Warriors from then on, and as such, the Warriors finished out the match.
For Western, Kooken led her team with 12 kills. Rossberg was close behind with 11 kills of her down. Devon Via had six kills and a pair of blocks. Riley Martin tallied 29 assists. Marin Crowder had nine digs while Marina Clark had eight.
Monticello’s two seniors each finished their high school volleyball careers. Williams finished 18 assists and nine digs while senior counterpart Molly Relkin had three kills.
“Molly and Mariah have done great things for this program and they’re leaving it in better shape then when they found it, which is all you can ask for from your players,” Mitchem said. “We’re still loaded with this great junior class we have and we’ve got a lot of great young players, so now the number one priority for this program is finding our next setter. That’ll be mission number one.”
Devine and Scott, both juniors, led the offense with respective kill totals of 10 and nine. Sophomore libero Trystam Carr led the defense with 11 digs.
Western will face Powhatan on Thursday at Monticello at 7:30 p.m. for the JD tourney title. The Warriors took six of seven games from the Indians in both regular season wins.
