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Wildcats Dominant In Regional Run
Continuing its impressive postseason run, the Rockbridge County High School volleyball team won the Region 3C championship by earning a 3-0 home win over Rustburg in the finals on Saturday afternoon in Lexington.
With the 25-16, 25-21, 25-18 victory, their 23rd in a row, the Wildcats (27-1) won their third regional title in program history and their first in five years. Last week, RC won the Valley District tournament.
RC and Rustburg (19-6) will both advance to the Class 3 state quarterfinals, which will take place on Saturday, with the Wildcats playing at home against the runner-up of the Region 3D tournament. For the time and opponent, visit www. thenews-gazette.com.
The Wildcats won regional titles in 2017 and 2018 and lost to Hidden Valley in the state quarterfinals both years, the furthest the Wildcats have advanced in the postseason.
Saturday’s win was a special victory for RC’s five seniors, who were freshmen when the Wildcats lost to Rustburg in the regional finals in the spring of 2021, a season postponed from the fall of 2020 due to COVID-19. Rustburg then went on to win back-to-back titles.
Reflecting on the win, RC senior hitter Sophie Vaught, who was a freshman on the Region 3C runner-up team in 2021, said, “Freshman year, we played this [match] against this team, and it didn’t go our way, so it was really special to do it again and win this time. Especially, to sweep them was really awesome.”
The other seniors sharing the experience with Vaught were Maddie Dahl, McKenzie Burch and Nala Shearer. Senior Sophia Perlozzo wasn’t on the varsity team then, but she joined as a sophomore in the fall. After celebrating the win, Burch said, “To come back and basically have a repeat of my freshman year, same thing, just on our side this time, there’s no other feeling like it.”
“I feel like everyone came out wanting to win,” added Burch. “All the sophomores and freshmen, everyone stepped up and did their part. The bench, the players on the court.”
Burch’s older sister, Hannah, a 2018 RC graduate, was on the 2017 team that won the first regional title in program history, with Hannah being named Region 3C player of the year. On Saturday, Hannah and other members of the Burch family were watching from the bleachers.
The Wildcats, the top seed in the regional tournament, got off to a fast start on Saturday, playing aggressively to take a 9-3 lead in the first set and then increasing it to double digits briefly.
Addressing the significance of the fast start, second-year RC head coach Kassidy Beagan said, “I think that first set again was very important to come out and send a clear message.” Beagan said her players “knew that coming out, and I think they really wanted to do that, and they did a good job executing.” Seventh-seeded Rustburg trailed 14-8 in the second set before going on a 6-0 run to tie it. The Red Devils briefly took the lead before the Wildcats went up 19-18, and RC wouldn’t trail again in the set, winning the final four points, three on Rebekah Allen’s serve. Dahl finished the set with a kill.
In the third set, Rustburg took an 8-6 lead, and the match was close much of the way before the Wildcats went on a 4-0 run to go up 15-12. RC stayed ahead the rest of the way, getting kills from Dahl, Vaught and Burch to finish the match.
Vaught led the Wildcats with 13 kills and had two blocks, while Burch paced RC with 32 assists and added 10 digs. Shearer collected a teamhigh 26 digs, while Dahl led RC with eight blocks and had nine kills and 14 digs. Also stepping up for the Wildcats were Perlozzo with nine kills and three digs, Jada Hamilton with five kills and five blocks, Mackenzie McCormick with five blocks and three kills, Rebekah Allen with a team-high five aces and eight digs, and Ava Crocker with six digs.
Leading Rustburg was Nahla Bigham with 10 kills and three blocks, while Sophie Coles had nine kills and nine digs. Emma Blankinship dished out a team-high 26 assists, and Tyleigh Abbott led Rustburg with 20 digs and three aces.
Proud of her team, Vaught said, “Our defense was incredible the whole game. Nothing was hitting the floor. We came out really aggressive and came out swinging and killing the ball.”
Commenting on the significance of RC winning the regional title, Beagan said, “It means a lot. I attribute it to the girls. They work really hard, and they listen, especially behind their serving line. They just do a great job of serving where I tell them to.”
Beagan said the Red Devils were tough because “they have a really good serving team as well, and I think that was our struggle point, our serve-receive with their good servers.” Beagan said her players aren’t used to getting so many tough balls over and over again, but the Wildcats stepped in to return them and earn the win.
The RC coach added that, when her players fall behind, “They do a really good job of coming back, no matter what. I have faith in them in their comeback game.”
RC 3, SHS 0
For the first time in five years, the Wildcats punched their ticket to the Class 3 state tournament with a 3-0 home win over Spotswood in the Region 3C semifinals on Thursday night in Lexington.
With the 25-12, 25-14, 25-20 victory, the Wildcats beat Spotswood (18-8) for the fourth time in four meetings this year, which included a 3-1 win the previous week in the Valley District semifinals. Last year, Spotswood ended the Wildcats’ season by beating RC 3-2 in the Region 3C quarterfinals.
In Thursday night’s showdown, fueled by the energy of the home fans, the Wildcats jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the first set, winning five points on Shearer’s serve. The Trailblazers cut the lead to 13-9, but RC then went on a 7-1 run to pull away.
“I think the key factor was what we did in the first set,” said Beagan. “The past few matches, we haven’t done a good job coming out in the first set. That was our main goal, and [my players] did a really good job executing that. We worked on that a lot.”
Spotswood took a 7-4 lead in the second set, but the Wildcats won the next three points to tie it. With strong hitting and blocking, the Wildcats gradually pulled away from a close set.
The third set was close the whole way, with the Blazers serving and hitting well to take a 10-5 lead early. RC won the next four points to cut the lead to one, with Dahl making two kills for the Wildcats. RC took its first lead of the set by going up 17-16 on an ace by Allen.
The Blazers tied the set 20-20 on a block by Josephine Robertson, but the Wildcats responded with kills from Dahl and Perlozzo. With Dahl serving, the Wildcats closed out the match, not allowing Spotswood to get another point.
Celebrating her birthday, Dahl led the Wildcats with 14 kills and six blocks while recording 11 digs and two aces. After the match, Dahl said “the energy on the court” really helped the Wildcats. “When the gym is loud, the team gets loud,” she said. “Just seeing us all come together for the same goal is really fulfilling.”
Burch paced RC with 33 assists and added six digs, while Shearer led the Wildcats with 22 digs and had four assists. Vaught contributed 10 kills and three digs, while Perlozzo added nine kills. Allen led RC with three aces and had four digs, and Ava Crocker chipped in seven digs and two aces.
Dani Kunkle led Spotswood with nine kills and 14 digs, Raygan Wade dished out 22 assists, and Ava Helfgott collected 12 digs. Adding four kills each were Robertson and Claire Shaffer.
Spotswood head coach Jim Roth said the Wildcats were challenging because “they don’t miss a lot of balls, and they hit them hard. They hit a lot of spots on the court. We had to cover a lot of the court tonight.”
Beagan said the Blazers were serving tough against RC, so the Wildcats had to work to adjust to that.
Dahl said that playing Spotswood is tough because the Wildcats know a lot of the players, competing with them in club volleyball. “It’s so personal playing Spotswood,” she said. “All of our friends are on this team. We know them, inside and out. We play them so many times.’
She added that making the state tournament is “a fullcircle moment for the senior class. It’s super, super exciting. There’s a lot of hope for this team.”
RC 3, ER 1
On Halloween night, the Wildcats bounced back after losing the first set to earn a 3-1 home win over East Rockingham in the Region 3C quarterfinals on Tuesday of last week in Lexington.
In their fourth meeting of the year, the Wildcats prevailed with a 22-25, 25-16, 25-14, 25-9 victory. RC won all four meetings, previously capturing a 3-1 home win over East Rockingham (17-10) in the Valley District finals five days earlier.
Beagan knows that defeating a team twice or three times is hard, but winning four times is even harder, she said. She credited her staff’s coaching adjustments as the key to RC’s success. “We needed to change up our defense a little bit, make adjustments to their hitters, and make sure that our block was set,” said Beagan. “And I think they did a really good job executing,” The Wildcats dropped the first set of the night, with neither team leading by more than two points in a thrilling opening frame.
“I think we’re having a strange start off in that first set, but we just have to have some time to settle in,” said Beagan.
The Wildcats settled in indeed, taking the next three sets. RC seemed to get better as the night went on. The Wildcats opened up the final set on a 10-1 run, a deflating blow for the Eagles.
After notching her 2,000th assist in their previous matchup with East Rock, Burch was an anchor for the Wildcats, contributing 33 of the team’s 36 assists. Burch also tallied 15 digs.
Dahl and Perlozzo led Rockbridge County’s offensive production, with each totaling 11 kills. Dahl was stellar defensively with six blocks and 17 digs. Perlozzo had success behind the server’s line with three aces, and Shearer added 25 digs and three aces.
The Wildcats are not taking these matches lightly, but Beagan stressed the importance of keeping a normal routine for her girls. “We prepare the same way,” she said. “We still have the girls watch film at home and then we break it down here. We pretty much are going through the same schedule,” she said.
