HS Volleyball: Wyoming East wins elusive Nicholas County Invitational title

Warriors defeat Liberty in a thriller in the Raiders first-ever title match appearance

Summersville - Wyoming East and Liberty are just over a month away from postseason play.

Saturday evening, the two Class AA Region 3 titans met in the championship match of the Nicholas County Invitational Volleyball Tournament and the match had a powerful postseason feel.

Needing three sets to decide a champion and battling fiercely to the final point, the Warriors outlasted the Raiders, 2-1 (25-23, 15-25, 15-13)

"That is two great teams. (Class AA) Region 3 is pretty solid this year. We had a great day. We are finally, for the most part, pretty healthy," Wyoming East head coach Tabitha Lusk said. "We started the season with some players hurt and that kind of threw a wrench in our plans as far as our line-up goes. Now we are mostly better and we have our original line-up out there that we want to run for varsity."

Following pool play, Wyoming East, Liberty and defending Class A state champion Greenbrier West were all 5-1. Tie-breakers determined the seeding as the Warriors No. 1, followed by the Raiders and the Cavaliers, respectively.

Wyoming East breezed past River View (2-0) and Nicholas County (2-0) to reach the championship, while Liberty knocked off PikeView (2-0) and Greenbrier West (2-0).

The Raiders jumped to an early lead in the best-of-3 championship title and led 17-13 before the Warriors ran off seven straight points to take control.

Liberty evened the match at 22-22 before two kills from Karlee Lusk and an ace from Madelyn Lyons sealed the opening set for Wyoming East.

The Raleigh County girls controlled the second set with Emily Williams playing a dominant role at the net, rolling to a 25-15 win.

Wyoming East returned the form in set three, but the win was far from easy.

A kill on an overpass by Carli Raye and a ace from Kenzie McGraw keyed an early 7-3 lead for the Warriors.

The two teams then exchanged serving errors ahead of a tip and a kill from Lusk, giving East a 10-5 lead. A kill from Lyons pushed the advantage to six points before an attacking error broke the Wyoming East run.

Finding itself in dire straits in a 14-8 hole, the Raiders came fighting back, scoring five straight points, capped by an ace from Montana Breton.

Wyoming East regrouped and when Raye pushed a ball deep into the back corner, Liberty could not handle the return, giving East the win in dramatic fashion.

"I think that happens to every team. You get a case of the sillies and the nerves start kicking in. The doubts start slipping in." Lusk explained. "When I called that timeout I just told them to trust themselves and to quit playing scared. I was tired of watching them play scared. They went out there and trusted their hitters and setters and it all came together."

Wile the Warriors finally captured the elusive title in Summersville, it was an historic day for Liberty as well. Saturday was the first appearance in the championship match for the Raiders.

"My girls played phenomenal. I am so proud of them. I was so impressed. I told them that they had no reason to put their heads down. I can't complain about anything that they did. They even gave me indigestion," Liberty head coach Denise Arline said, laughing. "This was good. I told them I knew what they could do and I wanted to see it. Nobody knows who will win the (match) until the last point. We knew what we were coming into, but we didn't back down at all."

Although Greenbrier West failed to make the championship match, the Cavaliers played well, fighting through adversity.

Down two starters, Greenbrier West, the only Class A school in the tournament, battled its way into the semifinal round including a wild 2-1 win over Scott after dropping the first set.

In the third set against the Skyhawks, the Lady Cavs found themselves down 14-8 in the race to 15 points. Greenbrier West fended off five straight match points to rally for a 17-15 win.

"We had a couple of starters out and one was especially hard to replace because we don't have a lot of depth at some of our positions," head coach Joe Robertson said." The best person to replace her was probably our setter. The only way to do that was go to a 6-2. Obviously Maddy (Sweet) was setting and also hitting. Prestlie (Shrewsberry), the other outside hitter, she was setting with Maddie."

"It shuffled everybody around. My middles played on the back row. My right side (hitter) was playing the back row. We just had to move everything around. On defense it's one thing, but serve receive it changes all that. With that being said, I am not too unhappy with how we played. We let momentum get us a couple of times and couldn't get it turned around."

Oddly enough, the Cavaliers faced an identical situation last year at the same tournament. Line-up changes that day became a catalyst to the Class A state championship title run.

"I learned a few things today," Robertson said. "I had a couple of people maybe playing a little bit where they hadn't been playing and they performed well. Obviously I would have liked to be playing in the championship, but with two starters out and working on something that we only worked on for a day and an hour, it wasn't that bad."