Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 9, 1995 TAG: 9511090071
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN A. MONTGOMERY SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The George Washington-Danville Eagles made a crash landing in Roanoke on Wednesday night - and no one walked away from the wreckage.
Patrick Henry demolished GW 15-4, 15-7 in the first round of the Northwest Region volleyball tournament at the Patriots' gym. PH advances to play Albemarle, a 15-9, 15-4 winner over Franklin County, in a regional semifinal at 1 p.m. Saturday. The regional semifinals and final also will be played at Patrick Henry.
The Eagles (5-12), who qualified for the regional by upsetting E.C. Glass and placing second in the Western District tournament, were no match for PH (16-2). After spotting their opponents a 3-0 lead, the Patriots scored 29 of the next 30 points.
The match was completed in less than 45 minutes.
``I thought it would be more of a match,'' said Marty Swan, PH's first-year coach. ``They didn't have a real good night. Our strategy was to play our game and see if they could stop us.''
Co-captain Allison Suggs, Becca Hogan and Gene Kent paced the Patriots' attack. PH scored 11 points on Suggs' serve, Hogan put away several kills and Kent, who stands 6-3, was very effective at the net.
``I was trying to move my serve around,'' Suggs said. ``I served toward their subs, and when they played a `W' [receiving-serve formation] with a short player [5-2 Monica Stone] in the middle, I served it deep.''
When the serves didn't win points for the Patriots, Kent was there to dominate at the net.
``I thought I played well,'' said Kent, who was the beneficiary of several well-timed sets.
``When Gene is aggressive, she's tough to stop,'' Swan said.
The Eagles called several timeouts, attempting to stem the tide, but they had little effect. Kent closed the first game with four consecutive left-handed serves.
In the second game, GW appeared to lose its composure and made several mental errors.
Swan substituted freely during the second game. When the Eagles rallied from 14-0 to 14-7 behind Stone's serve, however, Swan called time out.
``We had only one starter in at the time, and maybe it was a lack of experience, but for some reason, we lost our heads for a second,'' Swan said.
``We came in here as somewhat of a Cinderella team,'' said GW coach Linda Burns, whose squad lost its first eight matches before turning around its season. ``But we'd won five of our last eight matches. Maybe we were satisfied with getting this far, but we were real flat.
``The only time we really played was at the end. I told our team at that point to sacrifice their bodies and hit the floor. They've got all winter to heal.''
by CNB