by Lisa Hinton-Valdrighi
Lancaster High School came back from two sets down to take the best of five series, 3-2, over Rappahannock on Tuesday, October 21, then swept Essex, 3-0, two days later to cap an undefeated Northern Neck District varsity volleyball season.
The Lady Devils claimed the regular season district championship with an unscathed 10-0 mark in the Northern Neck and entered the district tournament as a top seed. In the semifinal round Tuesday, October 28, fourth seed Rappahannock upset Lancaster, 3-0, and will travel to Northumberland for the tournament final tonight, October 30. The Lady Indians swept Westmoreland, 3-0, in the other semifinal.
Despite the loss, Lancaster, at 19-4 overall during the regular season, still enters the Region 1A tournament as a second seed and will host Rappahannock again in a quarterfinal match on Monday, November 3.
Lancaster 3
Rappahannock 2
Rappahannock claimed the first two sets, 25-18 and 25-22, before the Lady Devils regrouped and dug deep to dig out of the hole and claim the next three sets. Lancaster won the third set in extra points, 27-25, then took the fourth set easily, 25-14, to bring up the tie-breaker. LHS won that, 15-13.
Kelsie Cox stepped up to lead LHS at the net with 12 of the Devils’ 36 kills in the match. Kelsey Bishoff put over nine kills and Suzie Geier five.
Bishoff also led behind the service line with six aces and McKenzie Pittman put over four unreturned serves.
Addie George worked hard on the back row with 36 kills, while Geier had 23, Bishoff, 22, and Rory Lally, 14.
Lally also had 29 assists.
Lancaster 3
Essex 0
Bishoff had six kills and Pittman had eight aces to help lead Lancaster in a three-set sweep of Essex with wins of 25-10, 25-19, 25-16.
Lally contributed five kills and Cox four. Bishoff put over six aces. Cox and Geier had four aces each.
George led the defense with 20 digs while Lally had 14 and Bishoff, 11.
Lally set for 14 assists.
