Jamestown’s volleyball team successfully defended their Bay Rivers District volleyball tournament title after beating New Kent in three games, 25-22, 25-18, 26-24, Saturday afternoon at Jamestown High.
The Eagles overcame an early test from an amped Trojans team to put together one of their best all-around efforts of the season, according to coach Tom Stephenson.
Behind senior leader Karley Allen, New Kent seized the early momentum and led most of Game 1 before Jamestown climbed back thanks to the powerful hitting of junior Kelly Esch.
Esch halted New Kent’s late run after the Trojans tied the set 22-22 with a powerful kill before spiking the game-winning point off a Trojans’ player’s hands and out of bounds.
“New Kent came out with a lot of energy and played hard,” Stephenson said. “I told the girls after that they withstood it and overcame it, and the next two sets we started strong, so overcoming that early adversity was different.”
Jamestown rolled to a 25-18 victory in the second set before holding off a spirited comeback effort by New Kent in Game 3 to win 26-24 and cap off the sweep.
Prior to the matchup, Stephenson said his team’s game plan was to try and keep the ball away from Allen, who showed why during Game 1 when she was a force at the net tallying five of her 10 total kills.
“That first set we were sort of seeing where we needed to attack to keep the ball away from [Allen], and we didn’t do a great job of that at first,” Stephenson said. “But we did identify where the ball needed to go, and the next couple of sets she really struggled and the coaches even had to pull them off the floor.”
After cruising to a 25-18 win in Game 2, adversity struck again for the Eagles late in Game 3. Holding on to a 24-19 lead, the Trojans stormed back to tie it after Paige Simpson reeled off five consecutive service points.
That’s when reigning district and region Player of the Year Briana Sutton took over.
After ending Simpson’s streak with a ferocious cross-court spike to give the Eagles a 25-24 advantage, Sutton aced the next serve with a beautiful sinking to give Jamestown the victory.
“Monique served me a great ball to get the spike, and then on the last point I was just thinking off-speed with my serve,” Sutton said. “It’s been a rough season for me, I’ve missed some time (due to injury), so I figured I needed to do something to help my team out.
“It feels great to get another tournament championship my senior year.”
Jamestown will next try and defend their Region I title when they host Eastern View on Monday at 7 p.m.
