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Historic season ends for Newbury
Friday, November 06, 2009
Coming off their first volleyball district championship since 2000, the Newbury Black Knights saw their dream season come to an end Thursday night to the Blue Devils of Western Reserve in four games: 18-25, 25-21, 26-28 and 22-25.
After the game Newbury head coach Carla Richardson said, “We didn’t play our best and when you make it to regionals you need to be at your best, and we just had too many unforced errors.”
Game one saw the Black Knights jump out to a 8-5 lead only have 11 unforced errors. Newbury was overtaken by the Blue Devils 16-17, and Western Reserve went on to outscore Newbury 8-2 the rest of the way. Newbury finished the first game with 14
unforced errors.
The second game Newbury kept the mistakes in check, tallying only nine. The Black Knights raced out to an 11-6 lead only to watch it evaporate to the Blue Devils 20-21.
Enter senior four-year starter Danielle Day, who served the next five points and nine for the game.
“We knew coming in that our serves were not going to carry us, but our defense has been key for us all season,” said Richardson.
The turning point of the match was the pivotal game three, as no team was able to pull away.
Each team held leads, none of them exceeding four points. Sophomore Katie Barton served three straight points to tie it at 22. Each team then traded side outs and miscues to tie the score at 26, but back to back errors by the Black Knights left them starring at a 2-1 series deficit.
Game three saw 10 ties and 12 Newbury miscues.
In the fourth game, the Black Knights took a 4-3 lead but never saw the lead again as the Blue Devils controlled the momentum and serves. Newbury trailed 15-21 before battling back to 21-22 but again the unforced errors and mental mistakes hurt the Black Knights as the fell 22-25.
“The third game was pretty big, we tried to battle back, but we didn’t play our best,” said senior Danielle Day.
Day was grateful for the fan support as a large student section cheered thunderously throughout the night. “They were amazing, I wish I could thank everyone for coming out.”
The senior’s heavily wrapped, sprained ankle, which she sufferd in the district semi-final one week ago, was not even up for discussion.
“It feels great. I don’t even feel it,” she said. “We just had too many errors; we lost the game ourselves.”
Day definitely did her part keeping the Black Knights close serving a team high 13 points while Junior Lindsey Knight served 10 for Newbury.
“It’s really difficult when you play a team you virtually don’t know anything about, so we just changed our matchups as the night went on,” said Richardson after her first trip to regionals.
Newbury did have a historic season ending with 20 wins and just five losses. The Black Knights have made it out of the regional tournament two times, once in 1980 and again in 1983.
