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Thursday, Oct. 26 – Overcoming a rough start, the Rockbridge County High School volleyball team won the Valley District tournament, earning a 3-1 home win over second-seeded East Rockingham in the finals on Thursday night in Lexington.
It was the 20th consecutive victory for the Wildcats (24-1 overall, 12-0 district), who finished strong to beat the Eagles 25-16, 19-25, 25-22, 25-21.
For the past two years, the Valley District had not had a tournament, as teams advanced directly to the Region 3C tournament, based on regular-season records.
The Wildcats are scheduled to play host to East Rockingham for a Region 3C quarterfinal match on Tuesday night at 6.
During the regular season, the Wildcats, the regular-season district champions for the seventh consecutive season and the top seed in the district tournament, had captured two 3-0 wins over East Rockingham (17-8, 8-4). However, the Eagles battled hard to test the Wildcats on Thursday night.
East Rock jumped out to an 11-4 lead in the first set, but the Wildcats battled back to tie it at 12-12. Winning 10 consecutive points on McKenzie Burch’s serve, RC went ahead 18-12 and closed out the set well.
In the second set, the Wildcats jumped out to a 7-2 lead, but East Rock chipped away at the advantage and capitalized on RC errors, ultimately pulling ahead and finishing the set on a 4-0 run.
The Wildcats held a small lead for nearly the entire third set, ending it with a kill by Sophie Vaught. The fourth set was close the whole way, with the Wildcats ending it by winning the final four points, with three aces from Burch to finish the night.
After collecting their trophy, the Wildcats went to the locker room and then returned with confetti to celebrate.
Vaught led RC with 11 kills and collected seven digs, while Nala Shearer paced the Wildcats with 22 digs and had four assists. Burch dished out 26 assists to lead RC and added 21 digs, five kills, five blocks and four aces. Other RC leaders were Maddie Dahl with nine kills, five blocks and 12 digs; Geneva Snyder with seven kills, Rebekah Allen with 13 digs, Hayley Higgins with seven digs, and Sophia Perlozzo with five kills and five digs.
Kate Simpkins led East Rock with 10 kills and 16 digs and had two aces. Also stepping up were Halla Baugher with 13 blocks and three kills and Alliyah McNair with 11 blocks, six kills and 20 assists.
For the full story and photos from this week’s action, please see our Nov. 1 newspaper.
