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High marks: Raucous fans help Strasburg ground Eagles
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By Greg Brill -- sports@nvdaily.com
STRASBURG -- Clarke County volleyball coach Mary Brune had tried to simulate the noise Strasburg's student section often provides at mid-court.
With a little help from the Eagles' unbeaten football squad, Brune had had her players practice through all kinds of distracting chatter and yells to better prepare for Thursday night's matchup for first place in the Bull Run District with the Rams.
The ploy did not work. Strasburg attacked Clarke County's back row constantly with serving and attacks and the Rams won their 14th straight match with a 3-0 (25-17, 25-15, 25-23) sweep of the Eagles.
"[Wednesday] I paid football players to come in with candy and scream so [Clarke's players] would practice for Strasburg's [student section]," Brune said. "I think it was wasted. I think their crowd [rattled] us throughout the match."
On a strong run for six weeks, the Rams (14-1, 5-0) didn't need any sweets when it came time to wrapping up their 10th three-set sweep of the season.
Strasburg didn't have a high number of aces (14), but they constantly put pressure on the Eagles with a consistent and powerful serve.
"That's one of our strengths -- to serve the ball hard and be consistent with our serves," said Strasburg coach Suzanne Mathias, who added she had heard the Rams' student section louder at other home matches. "When we do that, we're pretty tough.
"We're decent on moving and attacking the ball, so when we've got our serve going that makes us that much stronger."
At least during the early points, Clarke County (8-6, 3-1) didn't seem bothered by the atmosphere. Molly Keesling ripped a trio of aces and a kill, and the Eagles moved out to a 6-2 lead.
Coming off a surprising sweep of Rappahannock County on Tuesday, Keesling said she and her teammates felt confident coming in, even with Brune's added preparation with crowd noise.
"We wanted to give them their first [district] loss," Keesling said. "I've been looking at their record online. I've been following the scores against the teams we've [both] been playing and I saw they beat Madison [County] in four [sets] and we beat them in three. I felt really good coming in."
But after their early 4-point hold, the Eagles began to suffer a large number of attack and serve-receive errors. Strasburg had half its total of aces in the first set and went ahead 1-0 despite only six kills in the opening set.
When the second set rolled around, the Rams did better with their attacks. Strasburg put together several strong runs and mixed up the hits to take a two-set lead.
Down a pair of sets, Clarke County got back into it in the third set. The Eagles moved ahead deep in the set, and forced Mathias to use her first timeout of the match with the Rams down 17-16. Clarke County got the next 3 points after the timeout to move ahead by 4, but Strasburg still had one last rally left.
The Rams would score 9 of the last 12 points of the set, and Lauran Agnew's kill tied the set at 23. A soft serve by Jaclyn Ayers for her lone ace left the Rams at match point, and Agnew and Stephanie Conde finished things off with a combined block of a Clarke County attack for the clinching point.
"They just needed to pick it up," Mathias said of her team's play following the timeout. "We missed [five] serves in that set. All they needed to do was focus and talk and when they do that, they go on the 5-, 6-, and 7-point runs."
Though she was happy the Eagles put up a good fight late, Keesling knew too much inconsistent play over the course of the match hindered Clarke County's chance of an upset over the two-time Group A finalist.
"We had a lot of trouble with our serves," Keesling said. "It's a game you can't get many points unless you [maintain] your serve. And our passing game was off. Every time we missed a serve, our passing suffered as well, with serve-receive."
The Rams got a team-best seven kills and three solo blocks from Smoot, six kills and a team-best 15 assists from Agnew, six kills and 10 assists from Ayers, and a match-best six aces from Conde.
Clarke County had a match-best 14 kills and team-best four aces from Keesling and six kills from Amy Hagerdon. Setter Leslie Ray Conner had 17 assists.
Keesling said that she will look forward to the next matchup with the Rams, which will be on the Eagles' senior night later this month. Brune just hopes Clarke County's play with serve-receive improves and the focus stays longer than it did Thursday.
"We were standing and watching [on serve-receive]," Brune said. "Instead of going to the ball, we didn't move our feet."
Then, with a bit of a grin, Brune added: "I guess we didn't have enough football players heckling."
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