Leesburg, Va. — Finding themselves in a similar situation as they had been in during an earlier regular season match, the Loudoun County High School volleyball team needed to rally late after getting down two sets to one to extend their VHSL Region 4C semifinal match against Heritage High School on November 6 in Leesburg. Unlike in their October 7 game against Dominion where the result would only determine seeding for the VHSL Region 4C tournament, the Captains needed to win this game to keep their season alive.
After taking the first set convincingly, Loudoun County found themselves playing catch-up after dropping the second and third sets in extra points. Then, the Captains weathered seven Heritage match points to take the fourth set and force a deciding fifth. Although neither team was letting up, the Captains came away with the 25-15, 29-31, 24-26, 33-31, 15-11 victory to move on to the region championship game.
“Luckily, we were able to come back, and the rest of the game was just tight and close,” Loudoun County head coach Sarah Mozeyko said. “Everybody was scrambling, but there were still really good, amazing spurts of volleyball being played on both sides of the court. Heritage really played the game of their lives there, but I’m also really proud of our girls, too.”
What started as a back-and-forth first set with ties at every point from six to ten, turned into a blowout after the Captains took over the lead for good behind a 9-0 run where senior libero Isa DeWan (20 digs, 6 assists, 4 aces) scored three of her four aces, senior outside hitter Charlotte Arrington (24 kills, 13 digs, 7 aces, 1 assist) contributed three kills, and the Captains recorded two blocks.
“We really wanted to get the setter out because that eliminates their hitters, and it makes it easier for us,” Arrington said. “So for our serves, we try to put it in the seams, stay away from the libero, and keep pushing them deep. We kept bringing the defense up with the tip, and then we would push it deep so that they wouldn’t know where we were going with it, which made it easier for us to control the game.”
Despite the Pride effort, led by seven kills from junior outside hitter Jasmine McBorrough (25 kills, 4 digs, 3 blocks) and five kills from junior outside hitter Kaylee Mehta (19 kills, 5 digs, 2 aces, 1 assist), Loudoun County continued to side-out behind a few more Arrington kills for the 25-15 first-set win.
The Captains continued riding the momentum as they built a 16-3 lead to start the second set. Senior setter Claire Popish (25 assists, 9 digs, 3 kills, 1 ace) connected with four different hitters for kills, and junior middle hitter Sydney Miller (8 kills, 4 aces, 3 blocks, 2 digs, 1 assist) recorded two kills and three aces to give Loudoun County the big advantage.
But Heritage wasn’t going down without a fight. The Pride responded with a 6-0 run featuring three McBorrough kills from junior setter Annabelle Kim (21 assists, 11 digs, 1 ace). Loudoun County senior outside hitter Jo Seekford (18 digs, 14 kills, 1 block) countered with a couple kills of her own, but Heritage then went on another 6-0 run, benefitting from a handful of Captain errors and picking up the defense behind the set-high 7-dig effort of senior libero Emily Kolas (21 digs, 5 assists, 1 ace).
Contributions from Heritage junior middle hitter Shannon Treloar (11 kills, 3 blocks, 2 digs, 1 ace) and a dump from senior setter Avery Lefman (27 assists, 9 digs, 3 kills, 2 aces) brought the Pride within one at 21-20. McBorrough then recorded a kill-block-kill combo for the first tie of the set at 23-23.
“When we first talked about the game plan, we originally thought they were going to be swinging more, and I think they thought that we thought that. So they started to be really smart,” Arrington said. “And sometimes we do lack off-blocker defense and covering the tip. So we really focused in on that. And if we could just control the first ball, the rest of the touches would just be easier to play and get the point.”
The teams went back-and-forth for the remainder of the set, as each side had three opportunities at set point before Heritage capitalized on their fourth chance with a kill from Mehta for the 31-29 victory.
“We lost the second set after being up by 13 points, and we went into that set in the huddle saying, ‘Heritage is the type of team where if you take your foot off the gas, if you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile from you.’ And they did just that,” Mozeyko said. “We got a little too comfortable, a little too predictable. Heritage definitely woke up; it being an away game, they definitely got settled in, and we lost that set.”
Twelve ties and nine lead changes took place in the third set as the teams battled it out for the upper hand. The lead and the momentum teetered as Popish and junior setter Morgan Karle (22 assists, 6 digs, 2 aces) found Seekford for six kills and Arrington for five kills, while the Pride were led by six kills from Mehta, four from McBorrough, and three from Treloar.
After a Heritage service error gave Loudoun County set point at 24-23, the Pride responded with three straight points on a block, a kill, and an ace to steal the third set, 26-24.
“We knew it was coming, especially from [McBorrough]. She would get us on those cross-balls if our block wasn’t connecting, and we just had to rotate through our right sides a little bit in order to find something that stuck and was able to shut her down,” Mozeyko said. “But she shut us down, too, quite a few times with her block, and we just had to find a way to work around it.”
Another exciting set ensued through the fourth as more ties and lead changes highlighted the action. Besides the opening four points—where Loudoun County went on a 4-0 run which was immediately countered by a Pride 4-0 run—neither team led by more than three points during the set. While the presence of the Heritage front line was felt more with four blocks, the service pressure from Arrington and the Captains was key.
“Our serve is what saved us tonight. I think we only had a total of three missed serves, which is probably a record for us,” Mozeyko said. “We went into the game saying, ‘We have to serve hard.’ Their libero did an amazing job. She ended up taking over half of their court for serve-receive, so if we served to her, they had an in-system offense. But luckily for us, our missed serves were at a minimum tonight, and I think that’s what really saved us in the long run.”
The Loudoun County offense also started mixing up their shots to account for the block and to catch the Heritage defense off-balance. Seven different players recorded kills in the fourth set, while the defense picked up behind a handful of digs apiece from DeWan, Seekford, and Arrington.
“We eventually got our offense moving. We realized that the Heritage block was stationed on our outside hitters, our big power hitters, so we eventually got our block moving. We were constantly rotating girls in and out of our lineup tonight on the right side,” Mozeyko said. “Our back row defense led by our libero, Isa DeWan, just did a phenomenal job. She covered those cross-balls beautifully, and she just did a really good job in the back row for us. We eventually had to start making the smart plays offensively, take away the tips, and get the quick points to get out of there.”
Although it seemed as though the Pride were going to end it, as a Loudoun County error brought them to match point at 24-21, the Captains had other plans. Four straight Loudoun County points flipped the script and gave the Captains their first opportunity at set point.
Similar to the end of set two, the teams battled for the advantage. After fighting off two Loudoun County set points, the Pride had three straight opportunities but couldn’t convert. Back-to-back Heritage errors gave the Captains another chance, but McBorrough set the Pride up for the win with a big kill delivered by Lefman. Loudoun County continued to fight, though, as Arrington assisted on a kill and then brought it home with a kill of her own to finally end the set, 33-31.
“I just told the team that we worked so hard during three hour practices and practices on Fridays when we didn’t want to go and early morning practices. We worked way too hard to just end it here, and to a team we already beat in the regular season,” Arrington said. “For my gameplay, I realized that the block was really getting up there. So we had to stop swinging away and start really using shots because once we put some more shots in the game, they didn’t know where we were gonna go as much, and it started to work.”
With the match tied 2-2 and their seasons on the line, neither team backed down during the deciding fifth set. Mehta and Arrington traded kills to open the set, but a 6-2 Heritage run—featuring a pair of blocks, a pair of kills, and a pair of aces—gave the Pride the largest lead of the set at 8-5.
The Captains responded with a kill and a block from junior right side hitter Kayla Luther (7 kills, 5 digs, 1 block) on a 4-0 run to take over the lead. Although Heritage tied it at 9-9 and 11-11, Loudoun County finished the set on another 4-0 run to save their season and move on to the VHSL Region 4C championship match on November 11 against Dominion, a 3-0 winner over Woodgrove in the other semifinal.
“The mindset is that every point matters. I think we tend to get down on ourselves a lot, so we really just need to focus on every single point and have that mindset where it’s like, ‘Just keep swimming’,” Arrington said. “I know that [Dominion] is going to focus a lot on our setter defense, because that’s what happened the first time [we played them], and that’s what really got us. We were out-of-system 24/7, so I think that if we really hone in on that and work on our out-of-system, we can defeat them.”
“We’re definitely going to have to rest after tonight, myself included. I think it took a lot out of us, but we will regroup this weekend. We will watch film on their latest game, and we will track their hitters, and we will find whatever weaker links we can and we’ll aim for those,” Mozeyko said. ”But I’m sure they’re doing the same against us. They’re a very talented program, and it should be an exciting game.”