The Lord Botetourt volleyball team will get rematches this week with two teams the Cavs lost to last week. The Cavaliers were scheduled to play at Auburn on Tuesday and home against Blacksburg tonight.
LB lost to both of those teams last week, Auburn in three sets and Blacksburg in a five-set marathon. Both opponents are among the top teams in the area.
“We played a couple great teams last week,” said LB coach Julie Conner. “Auburn challenged our serve receive and defense, and we kept things close in the first two sets. We played a great match against Blacksburg and did a lot of things well, we just came up a little short at the end.”
When the Cavs played Auburn, Julie was coaching against her sister, Sherry Millirons. The two sisters have both won multiple state championships and this time Sherry got the better of Julie, 25-23, 27-25 and 25-13.
The Blacksburg match, on the road, was as close as you can get. The Cavaliers won the first set, 25-19, before the Bruins tied it with a 25-20 win in the second. LB won the third set, 25-13, and were on the brink of victory, but Blacksburg fought back to win the fourth, 25-17, to tie it up again. The Bruins then won an overtime fifth set to 15, 16-14, to win the hard-fought match.
Lots of stats in this one as Spickard had 15 kills and 11 digs. Stephenson had nine kills, five digs and three aces while Dewease had a team high 34 digs. Becca Huddleston had four kills, four blocks and two aces and Skylar Morris had 25 assists and 11 digs.
With the two losses LB fell to 1-2 overall and the Cavaliers have yet to play a district match. After this week’s games with Auburn and Blacksburg the Cavaliers will host Cave Spring next Tuesday, September 7, then go to James River for an intra-county matchup a week from today.
River opened with a win over Staunton River on Monday in Moneta, 25-15, 23-25, 25-10 and 25-20. Emma Lester led the Knights with 10 kills, eight digs and two aces. Lexi McCullough had five kills and six aces, Bailey Mines had 15 assists, four kills and four aces, Rachel Harless had eight digs and two assists and Elly Lackey had seven digs for River.
The Knights have their home opener on Thursday of this week against Covington, and it’s a doubleheader after last week’s match was postponed. The varsity will host the Cougars for two in the main gym, beginning at 5:30 p.m., while the junior varsity will play two in the auxiliary gym at the same time.
