Gallery by Ashley Honaker
Lindside – James Monroe came into the evening having already clinched a spot in Saturday’s Region 3 tournament. The goal was to make things easier on itself while defending its sectional title in the last home match of the season.
The Mavericks checked both boxes.
The hosts swept River View 3-0 in the championship bout to claim the Class A Region 3 Section 1 title Thursday evening in Lindside.
“It feels good!” James Monroe coach Julie Bradley said. “We’ve had a fun year and a lot of people came out tonight and you can see that. Great fans supporting us. It’s special winning a sectional but we don’t want this season to end.”
River View, which defeated Montcalm earlier in the evening to earn its spot in the title tilt, trailed early with the Mavericks racing to an 18-9 lead behind empathic kills from Maggie Boroski, Aliyah Clarkson and Ava Pitzer.
River View, which trailed 19-9 and 24-16 in the opening set, rallied to make it a 24-20 set before conceding the game point.
The second set told a different story with the hosts going up 20-7, closing the match on a 5-1 run for a 25-8 win with their outside hitters again leading the way.
“We were just having fun, doing our thing,” Bradley said. “We were attacking the ball instead of pushing and tipping. They got blocked a couple of times and it kind of shocked them for a second. We wanted them to stay focused and not panic and just make sure to get the ball back in the air where we could get to it. That’s what they did. They just turned it up and they’re fun. You have to keep them focused a little bit because they’ll get silly every once in awhile but they’re fun.”
The momentum carried into the third set with the Mavericks claiming the first five points with Sadie Mann serving but the Raiders found life in their second match of the evening. They stopped the bleeding and got back to within two points at 6-4, falling behind again 16-9. The charge continued again when they got to within four at 24-20 but the bombardment from Boroski and Clarkson late proved too much.
“They just love to hit,” Bradley said. “I’ve got a picture here of Aliyah hitting and there’s an indent in the ball. I mean that girl can pound it and when they get focused and in their zone they’re going to hit as hard as they can. We work a lot on just placing the ball and getting a full approach and using your arms and swinging and they just practice it every day and work hard. They led the team last year in kills and Ava’s in there this year with them. They’re just having fun with it.”
James Monroe will play Charleston Catholic at Catholic on Saturday in the regional matchup while River View will face Greenbrier West. The winners of each match will qualify for the state tournament and move on to play each other for the region title game immediately after the regional elimination matches.
“We don’t talk about winning states or anything like that,” Bradley said. “We just want to play the game in front of us that day. We want the chips to fall in our favor but we know we have some good teams we need go beat. Catholic has gotten a lot better and Greenbrier West beat us in the Coalfield tournament so we can’t take anybody lightly.”
