The 2011 Albemarle Inviational featured a solid local slate of volleyball on Saturday, including the hosting Patriots, Western Albemarle and Fluvanna County. All three Central Virginia teams squared off in the tournament that featured six other squads with the Warriors taking home the title with four wins during the day.
“We had a very solid day and I thought everyone played really well,” said first-year Western coach Jena McFaddin. “This got us a lot of experience in some critical situations. We were tight a couple of times and this showed us what we need to work on next week so we can start out strong in the (Jefferson District).”
Western, Fluvanna and Albemarle each won their first two matches of day to set up a final round featuring just those three schools in the top bracket. The Warriors took down both the Flucos and the Patriots in straight sets to finish the day 4-0. Between those four matches, Western dropped just one set on the day.
Senior setter Riley Martin, libero Marin Crowder and middle hitter Katie Rossberg were named to the All-Tournament team. Rossberg led Western with 36 kills on the night, and against Fluvanna, was successful on 17 of her 19 attack attempts. Rossberg also led her team in blocks with seven. Laura Bergin was right behind Rossberg with 29 kills but also had 15 digs. Maggie Kooken had 25 kills and 14 digs. Martin had a busy day, finishing with 74 assists and 16 digs to go with 15 aces. Crowder had a team-best 38 digs.
Fluvanna finished the tournament 3-1 as they closed out with a tightly contested 3-set victory over Albemarle to bounce back from the loss to Western.
“This is always a great tournament because you get to see a lot of different teams and great competition and a lot of schools we would never get to see aside from Western,” said Flucos coach Christi Harlowe-Garrett. “I thought we did a good job of mixing our offense up well. Our hitters are doing a nice job and so is our setter there. The defense is starting to gel with the blockers doing a nice job. The net play is really coming along.”
Fluvanna’s Hannah Miller earned All-Tournament honors. The junior hitter recorded a team best 32 kills and an impressive 11 blocks. Emily Haden was the next closest with 17 kills to go with five blocks. Teammates Maddy Kline and Taylor Beck both had 12 kills a piece. Setter Sammie Toy had 68 assists.
Coach Mark Ragland’s young Albemarle team, which features all underclassmen, showed promise, taking Fluvanna to three sets and coming up just two points shy of handing Western its only other set loss.
“I thought in the first two matches of the day we really came out and played with some confidence and that helped a lot,” Ragland said. “Somehow we came out flat against Fluvanna though and that killed us. We made some errors and kept trying to do it again over and over. We made a lot of young mistakes but I was pleased with the Western match, I thought we were more aggressive. We’re still not in sync yet which you can see at times but I think we’re taking steps in the right direction.”
Patriots setter Jessica Block had 62 assists on the day to go with 29 service points and five aces. Sarah Woods led the Patriots with 18 kills and also contributed four blocks. Both Alexus Anderson and Sydnie Kostelac had 14 kills and respective block totals of nine and five. Michaela Malboeuf was Albemarle’s most dangerous player behind the line, picking up nine aces on 24 service points. Libero Caroline Porco had 31 digs.
Western (8-3) plays at Charlottesville on September 22nd.
Fluvanna (6-1) host to Spotsylvania on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.
Albemarle (5-3) will play at home against Stafford on Tuesday at 7 p.m.
