Kettle Run High School is named after a key 1862 battle in the Civil War.
Tuesday night in the Cave Spring gym, the Cougars must have felt like they had been dispatched by a cavalry.
Combining their signature power at the net with a strong defense along the back quadrant, Cave Spring rolled to the 25-17; 25-18; 25-15 win in the Group 3A state volleyball semifinal.
The Knights advance to Saturday afternoon’s state final at the Virginia Commonwealth University Siegel Center in Richmond. Cave Spring’s opponent will be powerhouse Warhill, a 3-set winner over Turner Ashby in the other Group 3A semifinal Tuesday. First serve is set for 3:00 pm.
“This win means everything,” Cave Spring head coach Tamalyn Tanis noted after the win. “Since the first week of August, this was the goal. The senior leadership has been the key. Our players have bonded and are all playing together.”
“We were a little tight at the start tonight,” Tanis added. “We relaxed when we went to the net and got it going. We’ve been working on our strength at the net and our defense was strong tonight. For some reason, we couldn’t serve well.”
The early going of the first set saw nerves and a series of errors by both teams dominating the play. Cave Spring was nursing a 12-11 lead when the Knights went to the net and the bottom dropped out for Kettle Run.
Junior Piper Roe got the onslaught in motion with a pair of monstrous kills and a major block. Looking for another set to Roe from junior setter Meagan Harrison, Kettle Run was caught flat footed when Harrison went cross court to senior Charity Klimaitis, who promptly buried the smash.
The Knights lead grew to 19-12 before the Cougars closed to 21-17. But, Charity Klimaitis restored order for the Knights with a laser that scattered the Kettle Run defense, and Cave Spring finished with the final three scores.
In the second set, Cave Spring took advantage of a pair of Kettle Run net violations to pull out to a 5-2 lead. At the 10-8 mark junior Shannon Holsinger sent two consecutive blasts for scores and a 12-8 Knight lead. Kettle Run would never get closer than 3 points the rest of the way. Cave Spring lead 24-15 before the Cougar front double-hit to end a 3-0 run and hand the Knights the 25-18 win.
The third set saw Cave Spring jump out to a 7-1 lead before Kettle Run fought back to close to 8-7. A Roe kill then keyed a 10-4 Knight run, and Cave Spring simply traded points the rest of the way to claim the 25-15 match clincher.
Kettle Run had trouble all night with receiving the Cave Spring serve to establish offensive control, and the Knights took advantage with authority.
“Cave Spring is a very good team,” Kettle Run head coach Bri West said afterward. “We pushed on some of the points, but Cave Spring pushed on every point. They had an advantage on height and training, We had some tough net calls tonight. That came from our youth and having to play closer to the net than we’re used to. We lost to a much stronger team at the net.”
Roe and Charity Klimaitis led the Cave Spring power surge with 10 kills apiece. Roe added 5 smack-backs at the net. Alayna Foutz provided 16 digs and 4 aces, while Charity Klimaitis had 10 digs. Harrison tossed up 30 assists to set the table all night.
“I’ve been working on my hands,” Harrison said. “I’ve got a mindset to be aggressive and have the confidence to go to any of our hitters.”
“We were clicking tonight,” Roe pointed out. “Meagan was great with her sets. Hopefully, there’s more to come on Saturday. We’ll be prepared for it.”
– Bill Turner