Western rallies past Monroe

By Paul Montana
Published: October 7, 2008

By Paul Montana

Daily Progress correspondent

STANARDSVILLE —Though William Monroe and Western Albemarle split the first two sets in their Tuesday night match, the powerhouse Warriors overcame the screaming Greene Dragons faithful and take control of the match after pulling out to an 11-point lead in the third set.

In the end, first-place Western Albemarle was simply too big and too powerful for second-place William Monroe, prevailing in the third set 25-20 and in the match 3-1 (21-25, 25-19, 25-20, 25-13).

“That’s what you always hope for,” Western Albemarle coach Lance Rogers said of the third-set turnaround. “That they can sort it out on their own without you helping.”

The Dragons, however, took the next point, and the next, and four more after that. Rogers took a timeout, but the points continued to mount, and the noise from a packed house in the gymnasium at William Monroe continued to rise as they tied the game at 18.

“It was a great run by Monroe,” Rogers said. “They served tough, played aggressively and mounted a great comeback drive there.”

The fiery crowd also revved up the home team in the opening set, as coach Dee Hoffman’s group won seven of the last 10 points of the set to take a 1-0 lead.

As William Monroe’s early energy subsided into subsequent sets, however, outside hitter Sarah Harper and the rest of the Western attack only got more lethal. Harper led all players in kills (13) and digs (22), tallying one more dig than Warriors libero Aja Linton.

“Sarah did some amazing things out there,” Rogers said. “She pulled off one or two plays that left us all gasping.”

The Warriors are also becoming accustomed to receiving significant contributions from Chastity Lacy, who came up with 13 kills and two blocks.

“The first play of the game, I hit it out, so after that I was a little nervous,” Lacy said. “Once things started picking up and my adrenaline started pumping, I started getting into it.”

Outside hitter Melanie Lamb spearheaded William Monroe’s attack with 20 assists and 12 service points. Knocking down clean kills was a problem throughout the match for the Dragons — no one tallied double-digit kills, as Alex Cave led the squad with nine.

“Against a team like this, you’ve got to be smarter — you’ve got to put it in spots,” Hoffman said. “We just kind of gave them little easy shots, and they just put it away on us, so that killed us.”

As the match moved to the fourth set, Western went on an 11-3 run midway through the set to close the door for good.

Western Albemarle is “an awesome team; very competitive, always been tough in the district, number one for years,” Hoffman said. “Unless we’re on our ‘A’ game all the time, we’re not going to beat them.”