Photo by Leigh Downey
The James River girls won three of five matches to take third place in the eight-team Knights Invitational volleyball tournament in Springwood last Saturday.
“This tournament was huge for us,” said River coach Linsey Firebaugh. “We came out slow and unfortunately lost our first match to Rustburg. Luckily, it was just one of those games and not one of those days.”
The matches were all best-of-three and Rustburg defeated River in two sets to open pool play. Konner Myers had eight digs and Brea Anduiza had 11 assists for the Knights.
River bounced back to beat Franklin County in two sets in the next match as Caitlin Canada had nine kills. River then went up against a Salem team that was 8-1 and was undefeated before losing to defending Class 3 state champion Hidden Valley last week. The Knights defeated the Spartans in three as Canada had a match high 16 kills and Myers had 15 digs. With a 2-1 record the Knights won their pool.
“Since we finished first we moved into the championship bracket and faced the second place team in the other pool, which was Alleghany,” said Firebaugh. “We came out hot against them, taking the first set. Their hitters then got hot and they took the next two sets to take the match.”
Ava Thacker had eight kills against the Cougars, Myers had 16 digs and Ayden Jennings and Anduiza combined for 21 assists.
E.C. Glass won the other pool and met Salem in the first championship bracket game and defeated the Spartans. That put Glass and Alleghany in the championship match and the Hilltoppers defeated the Cougars to win the day while Alleghany took second.
River and Salem played for third and River beat the Spartans in three sets again. Myers had 13 digs, Anduiza had 18 assists and Jadyn Miller had eight kills.
“We came out slow against Salem and they took the first set,” said Firebaugh. “However, the girls decided it was the last game of the day and they wanted to go out playing well. We took the next two sets to take the match and finish third overall in the tournament.”
River’s Konner Myers was the Libero of the tournament and Caitlin Canada made the All-Tournament team. Ava Mayberry of Glass was the tourney Most Valuable Player.
River improved to 9-5 on the year and the Knights were scheduled to play at Radford in a Three River District match Tuesday. On Thursday River will host Patrick County.
Last week in Hillsville the girls defeated Carroll County in a tight Three Rivers match, 26-24, 25-19, 27-29 and 25-23.
“This was a solid win for us,” said Firebaugh. “The girls came out hot and kept pressure on Carroll all night.”
