**Video available below**
**Click here for a photo gallery from the LC-BR match**
By Dan Sousa
LoudounPrepSports.com Senior Content Editor
Ashburn (Sept. 12, 2008) – Can a team rolling along to its 33rd straight victory really be in a rebuilding mode?
When it comes to the Loudoun County High School volleyball team, call it “touch-up mode” as the Raiders are working with a whole lot of talent but are also still fitting together the pieces for what appears to be another AA state playoff run after winning the title in 2007 and finishing runner-up in 2006.
Make no mistake, the Raiders are led by senior Shaylin O’Connell, who had 16 kills in Thursday’s 3-1 (25-18, 25-17, 17-25, 25-20) victory over Broad Run and LC got strong performances from such seniors as Katie Gloe (9 kills, 11 digs), Rochelle Latka (5 kills, 3 digs), Katie Martin (7 assists, 7 points) and Kerry Sarver (7 assists, 3 digs). But the Raiders are also at times a young team with sophomore Rachel Arigo (5 kills, 5 blocks, 7 aces, 14 points) displaying an increasingly tough-to-return service game, sophomore Kathleen Horvath (12 digs) settling into the Libero role, junior Emily Vandegrift (4 kills, 5 digs) taking advantage of her time at the net, junior Juliane Hanna (9 kills, 8 digs, 9 points), a season away from the district’s Player of the Year contender, and junior transfer Robin Marsala (26 assists, 7 digs, 5 points), unleashing a jump set that teammates are still learning to hit to.
Basically, if you don’t get to the Raiders in 2008, watch out for 2009.
With only one senior starting, Broad Run expects to be right there with LC next year as well, but the Spartans are trying to get back into that regional bid spot in the district, having dropped three contests to Dulles teams within a week, including two matches to Heritage.
BR is also quickly improving with freshman Mallory Brickered registering 12 kills and four blocks against the Raiders and junior Elisa Scudder finishing with nine kills, five digs, two blocks and an ace. Missing from last year’s Spartan team that made it to regionals is a service game that nets easy points as BR was able to put down just two aces Thursday.
The Spartans lone senior starter, Kristen Burt, finished with 17 assists, two blocks, five digs, 14 points and one ace. Defensively for BR, Carolyn Pearce (21 digs) and Lizzie Dean (18 digs) combined for 39 digs and also added seven kills.
It was Arigo’s serving that put some distance between LC and BR in the second game as she took a 11-9 advantage and turned it into a 16-9 lead before giving up the ball. O’Connell was more than happy to patrol the net and put back any stray passes that didn’t find Burt.
Broad Run prevented the sweep by jumping out to a quick 7-2 lead in the third set and the Spartans never trailed as made it 2-1. Brickerd and Scudder were both on during this set.
The fourth set was back-and-forth early but then the Spartans had a run of unforced errors and the Raiders are just too good of a team to help out.
Tied at 15-15, Latka put the Raiders ahead but Scudder brought back BR to a 17-17 tie with a ****. O’Connell put LC ahead and again Scudder brought her team back to make it 18-18. When Scudder tooled the block on the next point, BR was up 19-18 but it would be the Spartans last lead of the evening.
Hanna tied it with a kills on the outside and then the Spartans had four errors in a row (a wide attack, a long attack, a two-hit violation and a net violation). Even when LC gave back a point with an error of its own at 23-20, BR followed with a service error and LC won the next rally to close the match.
Thurs. Sept. 11 Volleyball Scoreboard
Loudoun County 3, Broad Run 1
Raiders move to 4-0 in district with 25-18, 25-17, 17-25, 25-20 win. Broad Run is 2-2.
Heritage 3, Briar Woods 2
Falcons almost pull off shocker but Pride advances to 4-0 in distrirct with 25-20, 25-18, 23-25, 21-25, 15-8 win. BW is 2-2.
The thing about a potential Sept. 23 match-up with LC is that the Pride must make its through its schedule leading up to that. BW gave Heritage a run for its money Thursday in a match that Falcon coach Rich Bennett said was the “most exciting volleyball they had experienced since the inception of the school — in its fourth year.”
Pride’s freshman setter Stephanie Yokoyama tallied 46 assists and has over 300 assists already on the season. She also had 16 service points in the five set win. One of Yokoyama’s favorite targets was Lian Bernett, who had 19 kills and six service points. Also for Heritage: Emma LeMaitre had 25 digs and 14 kills, Megan Beckwith had 26 digs and Calleigh Fangmeyer had 13 service points and 14 digs.
Reported Bennett: “There was a lot of net play and we had the upper hand in blocking them with 12 total blocks. They surely had more total spikes. Some great volleyball – we are capable of hanging with the top teams.
BW was down 2-0 when they fought back for a 25-23 win in set three. Despite being down 9-4 the fourth set, BW fought back. First with a time out and call for a set to Kim Bell, which worked. The Falcons then scored three more straight points to come within 9-7. BW, led by Bell with five kills, a block and three aces in the set, outscored Heritage the rest of the way to complete the 22-12 run and send things into a fifth set.
Krysta Gardner had three kills for BW in the fifth set but Bennett said his team coudn’t get the ball to Bell, who had one **** in the fifth. It was tied at 2-2 before Heritage slowly pulled away, capped by a 4 service-point run at the end of the game by Yokoyama.
For the match for BW: 11 kills and 3 blocks each for Krysta Gardner and Kim Bell; Gardner also led the team with 5 digs and Bell had 7 service aces; 5 kills and 4 blocks for MH Bailey Jensen; and Caitlin Ronan – 28 assists, 2 kills , 1 service ace
Potomac Falls 3, Freedom 0
Panthers make it two straight in district to move to 2-2 with 25-17, 25-20, 25-14 win. Freedom is 0-4.
The Panthers moved to .500 in district with the sweep. For PF:
Tori Janowski had 7 kills, 12 aces with 17 service points, 6 digs, 18 assists and 1 block
Cat Jones had 8 kills, 5 digs, 1 ace and 9 service points, and 3 blocks
Nicole Fauteux had 3 kills, 7 assists, 2 digs, 3 aces and 5 service points
Sara Hibson had 2 kills, 4 digs and 2 blocks
Annie Reck had 2 kills, and 1 assit
Alexa Campbell had 2 kills, 7 digs, 1 ace and 4 service points
Kate Colfelt had 1 ****, 1 ace and 6 service points
Emma Ukleja had 2 blocks and 1 ****
Kerry Dwyer had 1 ****, 4 digs 1 ace and 3 service points
Katie Shiraishi had 6 digs, 1 ace and 1 service point
Reports Freedom coach Dave Tsuda: “There was no doubt the Eagle team fighting spirit was highly energized from the first point of the first game through the last whistle of the last game. The Eagles defense rose on several occasions to meet the strong Panther team attack. In each game, the contributions of tough digs and sprawling saves were well dispersed across the Eagle defensive specialists. The Eagles offense developed its own rhythm in game 2 as evidenced by the close score. The Eagles executed a mix of hard spikes and smartly placed soft shots to keep the Panther defense guessing.”
Dominion 3, Park View 1
Titans move to 2-2 in districict with 25-16, 14-25, 25-11, 25-14 win. PV is 0-4.
Dominion moved to .500 with Lauren Wong leading the way with 11 kills, two aces and six digs.
Also for the Titans: Erin Davenport had five kills and three blocks; Cassie Glosner had four kills and six aces; Stephanie Lummis had four kills; Kristina Brown had three kills; and Alaina Sisson had 18 assists.
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