BLACKSVILLE – After falling to No. 4 Madonna in five sets on Monday night in the Class A Region I, Section 2 volleyball tournament, the Trinity Christian Warriors fought through the loser’s bracket with three consecutive victories to reach the championship Wednesday evening in Blacksville.
Awaiting them were the Blue Dons, who gave them the opening round loss, and the Warriors entered the Statler-Wilson Gymnasium at Clay-Battelle Middle-High School needing to earn two victories before dropping a match to capture the sectional title and secure home-court advantage in Tuesday’s Region I co-final.
The Warriors defeated Madonna 3-0 (25-12, 25-21, 25,14) in the opening contest of the evening before continuing on and taking the second and final match 3-1 (19-25, 25-17, 26-16, 25-14).
With the victory, the Warriors earned the right to host one of two Region I co-finals on Tuesday night and will welcome St. Mary’s to Sabraton as both clubs try and punch a ticket to the state tournament.
“Losing is never something you want to happen, but I think Monday night was just the right jolt of energy our team needed to turn around and beat a team that beat us two nights ago,” TCS head coach Anna Witt said. “Our real team showed up tonight, not the team that was here two nights ago. I couldn’t be more proud of the girls’ effort and ability to stay together when facing adversity.”
Trinity Christian opened the night well, using a 17-4 run in the first set of the first match to ride a wave of momentum to the 3-0 sweep that forced the decisive match.
“That team (Madonna) is much better than we probably expected,” Witt said. “We didn’t play them during the regular season and didn’t know much about their game or style. They move the ball around well and have some heavy hitters on offense. I think it caught us a bit off guard on Monday, but we were able to adjust well and were ready to take away their strengths tonight.”
The second and final match that would determine a sectional champion started off favorably for the Blue Dons. They opened the first set with a swift 7-0 run that stifled the Warriors.
But they clawed their way back from down 8-1 to tie the set at 11 and force a Madonna timeout. But the Blue Dons wouldn’t allow the comeback in the opening set and pulled ahead again 16-13, and eventually win the set 25-19.
The Warriors weren’t ready to bow out yet and rallied in the following three sets to take home the sectional title. The Warriors won each of the final three sets by at least eight points and held leads in the opening stages.
With a senior class of six players (out of 11 on the roster), Witt says there was some extra motivation behind Wednesday’s performances in both matches.
“These seniors really want to play one last time on their home court,” she said. “They knew what we needed to accomplish today to have that happen, and they got it done. That’s been on our minds heavily today. Now we know we will be at home, with our fans and community in the gym behind us. That means so much to our team to have such an important match being played at home.”
