Generals fall short in finale

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By Jeremy Stafford -- jstafford@nvdaily.com

HARRISONBURG -- Heather Stout's eyes were fixed on the tall, glimmering gold trophy awarded to the Shenandoah District tournament champions. The gaze of her eyes said she wanted the trophy; the tear in her eye said she didn't get it.

Instead, as she and the rest of the Stonewall Jackson volleyball team watched the girls of Riverheads scream and swarm around the prize, Stout was left to wonder, what if?

What if only a few more passes had hit their mark; what if setter Whitney Wilkins wasn't forced to race around the court, chasing down those errant passes; what if only a few more serves had stayed in play?

Then that trophy might be hers, and that tear might be shed for a happier reason.

"I think we did play hard, and that we never give up, and we're not a team that just thinks, 'Well it doesn't matter, we're not going to give it our all,'" Stout said. "Because we do [give it our all], we're a very competitive group and it's hard to lose to [Riverheads] three times in a row when they haven't had a [district] loss on them -- it's tough."

But Stout still takes credence in the fact that her season still breathes. Despite Stonewall's 3-0 (25-21, 25-21, 25-23) loss to Riverheads in the Shenandoah District final at Eastern Mennonite University, the Generals will play at Strasburg on Tuesday in the Region B quarterfinals.

But that pesky little question -- what if? -- still swirled in Stout's head. What if Stonewall had taken that first set, when the score had tied 13 different times, and the Generals had a 21-20 lead before consecutive blocks by Kayla Baugh and Kelsie Floyd secured the lead for Riverheads? Indeed, each set "was anyone's game," though Riverheads always managed to put forth just a bit more effort, to play with just a bit more emotion, down the final stretch of each set.

"We had some serving-out in critical moments when the games were in the 20s," Stonewall coach Sophie Stout said. "You've got to sit back at the service line and keep that ball in play, and we didn't do that.

"There were a couple times that happened, and the serves have to be in when Heather's at the net -- that's our time to score."

Everyone seemed to have their own reasons as to why the Generals had fallen so far Thursday after playing so well Wednesday, when they swept Luray in the district semifinals to earn a regional berth: Heather Stout said the offense didn't click quite as well; Wilkins mentioned that her sets were a little off; and Sophie Stout concurred that Stonewall's passes faltered some.

All three seemed to agree, though, that perhaps the loss was the result of something more abstract. Maybe after leaving everything on the court Wednesday night, in a win-or-go-home match, there was nothing left come Thursday night.

"It was just a big 180-[degree] turn from how we played [Wednesday] night," Heather Stout said. "We covered like crazy, we talked to well together, we were moving the ball and everything, and I think that tonight we didn't do any of that.

"I don't know if we left it on the floor last night or what happened."

It didn't help that the Gladiators' tall blockers were ubiquitous, notching 12 blocks in the match and holding Generals hitters Ashlie Clar and Nadene Pence to three kills each.

"They did read us a lot," Wilkins said. "You could hear them on the other side of the court, as soon as the pass was up: 'Outside, outside.'

"They knew where it was going."

And even when Heather Stout called for a dummy play, meant to draw opposing blockers to her side of the court, leaving Wilkins to feed the open hitters on the opposite side, Riverheads easily recovered.

"Usually they don't have a lot of blockers there, but tonight it seemed there was always one there," Wilkins said.

Heather Stout had a match-high nine kills. And although no Gladiator out-hit Heather Stout, Riverheads distributed 33 kills among eight different players. Floyd had seven kills, as did Katie Coffey, Tiffany Flesher and Kristen Moody, the Shenandoah District player of the year. Stonewall had 20 kills, three aces and five blocks.

Following the match, Heather Stout was named first-team all-district, along with Central's Brea Hingardner. Wilkins and Pence earned second-team honors.

But for Heather Stout, the awards seem to be nothing more than a shadow in the back of her mind. With at least one more volleyball match left this season, they have to be.

"There are two teams in this district that are [playing in regionals], and I think the two teams that deserve it the most are going," she said. "The thing that I'm most happy about is I'm still playing volleyball next week.

"I'm just going to take this loss as a positive and move on from it and know that Tuesday night, it's all-or-nothing on the court -- win-or-go-home -- and that's all we can do is play 110 percent."