Patriots fall in five to Eagles

FREDERICKSBURG — Facing a two-game deficit against Colonial Forge in the Commonwealth District championship, it would have been easy for the Albemarle volleyball team to just call it day and head home.
However, the Patriots instead decided to make it a match by taking the next two games to force a fifth and final game. The Eagles wound up winning the last game 15-8 to take the match and the district title, but Albemarle coach Mark Ragland likes what he saw from his team.
“I was telling the girls that I wish we could play matches like that all the time because that’s what volleyball is all about,” Ragland said. “It’s not about easy wins. You need to have those other matches to prepare for things down the road.”
And just as Ragland was happy to see his players force a fifth game, Eagles coach Keith Mesa was happy to see his team rebound for a potentially devastating loss.
“I thought we passed the ball well in games one and two and didn’t in the next two,” Mesa said. “That put us back on our heels. But we’re real proud of our girls. So often when you lose two games in a row like that, the team doesn’t come out in game five. We just kept fighting.”
Sarah Frohnapfel was a one-person wrecking crew for the Eagles (15-6, 14-1 Commonwealth). In just her first year as a hitter, Frohnapfel finished the game with 17 kills to go along with 17 assists.
“She’s a good floor leader for us,” Mesa said. “For three years she set for us and she’s never hit and now she’s the best hitter on our team. It’s almost like it happened by accident.”
Laura Gomez helped to fuel the comeback for the Patriots by providing her team with 15 kills. Teammates Hannah Lawson and Kara Elder also chipped in their share by combining for 27 kills while Abby Hendrix had 34 assists. Ragland was particularly happy with Gomez’s determination to keep pounding the ball on the edges.
“I thought Laura did a really good job of taking it to them in games three and four,” Ragland said. “She worked really hard early on but it just wasn’t working for her, but then she started to get into the grove.”
The Patriots (19-2, 13-2) appeared to be a completely different team after a slew of their fans showed up just before the third game.
“Just to see that support, and see how much it meant not only to us, but to them it really picked us up,” Gomez said. “This the first time we’ve been down two games and comeback. Last time Colonial Forge beat us 3-0. The fact that we had the stamina and heart to come back just shows that we can do anything at this point.”
With the must-win nature of the postseason ahead of them, there isn’t a lot that the Patriots can tweak. However, after being caught off-guard by more than a handful of Colonial Forge serves, Ragland hopes it’s a onetime thing.
“I would like to see us improve on the serve,” Ragland said. “That’s more of a mental thing than anything else. Sometimes in these matches, we just tend to stand still.”