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Bobcat girls sweep Eagles in district opener
Battlefield was going nowhere fast when Chris Lem called his first time-out Tuesday night in Haymarket.“I don’t understand this,” the second-year varsity volleyball head coach said to his huddled Bobcats as they trailed visiting Osbourn 4-0.
The Eagles’ first three points came from bad ball handling by Battlefield, and momentum clearly did not favor the home team.
Sure enough, the Bobcats regrouped and thanks to a few errors by Osbourn, such as one ball hitting a retracted basketball backboard hanging at the top of the ceiling, and a couple of serves flying out of bounds, Battlefield stayed within a point or two of tying the game before the purple-and-black finally blew it up.
An out-serve to the Battlefield left side sparked a 7-0 rally featuring two aces from junior libero Mikaela Whitaker (23 digs), causing Osbourn coach Brett Machovec to call a time-out of his own.
“She’s a smart server,” he opined about Whitaker, the state record holder for most digs in a single game and in a single season.
Smart serves mixed with athletic ability, good timing and a little luck delivered a 3-0 win for Battlefield (25-20, 25-22, 25-16) in its first Cedar Run District match of the season.
According to senior outside hitter Lesley Chambers (5 kills, 10 digs), Battlefield varied its attack selection to keep the Eagles guessing.
“We tried to mix it up, like hitting line or hitting cross court so then they didn’t know where we were hitting,” she said. “And then we also tried to get a block up every single time the other setter set the ball just so they have that intimidation where they see the block, and they don’t know where to hit it.”
A scouting report on the team after the game could have instructed opposing teams that Battlefield’s back row is as fierce as they come, with Whitaker throwing her body around like a rag doll for anything she has even a remote chance of contacting.
The front group of Caitlyn Richbourg (4 kills), Annie Jones (3 kills) and Nikkisha Walker (3 kills) have also all improved since the 2007 campaign and are much more aggressive at the net, as are outside hitters Chambers and Kelly Milione (6 kills), the latter of whom ended the match with a nothing-but-floor attack.
“I just decided to go line,” said Milione of her walk-off game-winner after she had thrown her hands on her hips in frustration just one play earlier. “I was mad at myself because I messed up the other two, but then, it’s like, ‘You know what? It’s whatever. I’m going to get this one and finish the game.’”
“The key player, though, that I’ve been telling people to watch for is Kelly Milione,” added coach Lem. “She has totally looked different this year. Her vertical has really improved over the summer, and she has just been pounding the ball.”
But any scouting report would also have to note Battlefield’s struggle to close out games in a timely manner.
Osbourn outscored Battlefield by a combined 10 to 6 down the stretch in the first and second games, when trailing by identical 22-16 scores.
“They’re a real scrappy team. They could take anything that we hit at them, but I think we proved that we could take just as much as they were giving us,” said senior setter Virginia Hyer (11 assists).
Even when the Bobcats took a 21-9 advantage in game three, Osbourn still made a match out of it, besting Battlefield on the scoreboard by a near 2:1 ratio.
Partial credit goes to a “go for broke” offensive attack Machovec instructed his players to use.
“We always struggle, I think, with maintaining a good energy level. And we kind of seem to roller coast; go on waves,” said the coach, later adding, “bottom line is, we realized right away that they were going to come quick at us.”
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