RC Nets First Valley Win

Shorthanded Wildcats Slay Dragons

Making a late comeback in the fourth set, the Rockbridge County High School volleyball team earned a 3-1 home win over William Monroe for its first Valley District victory of the season on Thursday night in Lexington.

The Wildcats (2-6 overall, 1-2 district) trailed 23-21 in the fourth set, but they won five of the final six points to seal the 25-17, 22-25, 25-16, 26-24 victory.

Missing four players due to injuries, RC jumped out to an 11-5 lead in the first set before the Dragons (2-6, 0-4) came back to tie it 14--14, but the Wildcats used strong serving and net play to pull away.

The Wildcats raced to a 6-0 lead in the second set and led 21-16, but WM attacked the net and battled back, capitalizing on RC errors and finishing the set on a 9-1 run.

The third set was close early on before the Wildcats built up an 18-10 lead and made several kills to pull away.

In the fourth set, the Dragons jumped out to a 10-3 lead and were up 17-10 before the Wildcats started battling back. With strong serving by Maisen Mckemy, RC cut the lead to 19-17. Down 23-21, the Wildcats got a kill each from sophomores Geneva Snyder and Tadara Cooper. The Dragons scored one more point on an RC error, but the Wildcats won the final two points on WM errors.

A week earlier at home, the Wildcats suffered a 3-2 loss to East Rockingham, but they made sure history didn’t repeat itself last Thursday.

Pleased with his team’s comeback to prevent the Dragons from forcing a decisive fifth set, first-year RC head coach Gabe Wagner said, “It’s interesting how much better this team plays when they’re down and feel that pressure. I think that’s something you see across a lot of things. Teams have a tendency to maybe play down to their level.”

“If you look from a skill perspective, we’re probably quite a bit more talented than that team was, but they scrapped hard and made us fight for it, and maybe we didn’t take them serious,” added Wagner. “Maybe we weren’t as intense or as focused, but we figured it out in the end, and we got there.”

Mackenzie McCormick led the Wildcats with 15 kills and added 13 digs and two blocks, while Mckemy dished out a teamhigh 40 assists and had nine digs and four aces. Rebekah Allen paced RC with 26 digs and served up two aces, while Snyder led the Wildcats with five aces and recorded 12 kills and 10 digs. Jada Hamilton had 25 digs, eight kills and two aces. Cooper chipped in six kills and four digs, and Hayley Higgins collected five digs.

Proud of Cooper for stepping up in her first varsity match, Wagner said, “To come in and do as good a job as she did, it was awesome.”

The Wildcats were scheduled to visit Harrisonburg on Monday before playing host to new district rival Rocktown last night. They’ll continue district action at Spotswood on Thursday before playing host to nondistrict rival Fort Defiance on Monday and then returning to district action at home against Turner Ashby on Tuesday. All three nights will start with junior varsity action at 5:30 p.m.