By Stephen Smoot
Pendleton County’s volleyball team opened up the postseason last week in solid style, taking a workmanlike attitude toward dispatching opponents in an effort to punch a ticket to Charleston later this month.
The West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission changed its postseason arrangement, moving to a superregional tournament format instead of opening with sectional games. East Hardy as the one seed in Class A Region II hosted one portion while second seed Pendleton County welcomed opponents to Franklin to compete in its bracket.
A double elimination format means that the regionals have two rounds, with the championship rounds coming this week.
Alyssa Bennett opened the first set with a serve that caromed off a Tygarts Valley Bulldog player and sailed out of bounds, establishing the tone of the contest.
“Serving has been a priority for us,” explained Madison Day, head coach. She added that “it’s one of the few things in volleyball you can control.”
That especially serves as the case when Chesnee Colaw steps behind the line. She served second against Tygarts Valley. Out of 11 serves, eight drew an ace. Colaw approaches serving like Orel Hershiser did pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Calm, cool, collected, but with the precision of a surgeon, Colaw fires serves for both placement and speed while also sometimes working in curving motions.
When Colaw completed her service, the Wildcats had assumed a commanding 13-2 advantage. Not long after, Callie Judy stepped forward to serve with the score 16-3.
At that point, set one developed into a clinic. Judy, as she often did in last year’s state tournament, sliced and diced the defense with effective serving. Defenders fed sets to Brynlynn Waggy who dominated play at the net, alternating vicious spikes with soft directed taps.
Set one closed with a 25-4 score.
The Bulldogs started off serving in set two, but lost it quickly as Kinsley Price fired the ball back for the first score of the set. Price later took over the serve with her team up 4-1 and promptly scored an ace.
In many sports, the players who escape mention are the ones working the hardest to make big plays. Like a football offensive line, the middle and back row players in volleyball have to grind on every play. Colaw, Breena Bowers, Clara Raines, Carolyn Varner, and others did well all night tracking down balls and setting up teammates for scoring plays.
Front line players got into the act, selflessly setting each other up as well.
With the score 5-3, Waggy fielded a shot and pushed the ball to Varner, who returned the set for Waggy to spike it to the back row. Later, Judy set up Bennett for a precise shot to the left sideline for an 8-4 lead.
Bowers took the serve with the Wildcats up 12-6 and scored three straight aces. That was followed by Judy setting up Price for a spike. The set ended on five aces in seven plays by Bennett and Colaw, who closed the set with an ace and a 25-7 score.
The Wildcats served first in the final set, but it went errant and gave the Bulldogs their first lead of the game. That quickly evaporated as they served into the net. On the next play, Varner delivered a set to Colbie Wimer at the far left of the net where she fired a hard spike.
Wimer has honed her own style of spiking from that side of the net, angling it all the way across the court to the right sideline.
Varner got into the spiking when she delivered one to give the Wildcats a 6-1 lead. Not long after, Tia Heavner displayed her serving skill by scoring her own ace for an 11-2 advantage.
A few plays later, Emily Poling fielded a serve, popping the ball to Varner who then set up Wimer for another spike.
Toward the end of the set, Bowers moved the ball to Phoebe Pownell, who got the ball to Heavner for a shot to the middle of the defense and a 23-7 lead. Laney Bowers, who worked capably at the net when in, scored the winning play of the set and the game, 25-7.
