MORGANTOWN — The Morgantown High volleyball team survived its way back to the state tournament on Monday night.
The Mohigans survived an injury to star outside hitter Leah Greeny and then survived a comeback attempt from Musselman in a 3-2 victory at Morgantown High that handed the Mohigans the Class AAAA co-North Region championship and a 13th consecutive trip to the state tournament in Charleston next week.
MHS (32-4-1) enters the state tournament having advanced to the state finals in each of the last three years.
The No. 2-seeded Mohigans dominated the first two sets, winning both 25-12, as they were highly efficient in hitting off blocks for points, serving with purpose, and organizing their blocking pairs well.
And for the third straight set, Morgantown built a 16-9 advantage and seemed poised to cruise to a surprisingly easy regional victory.
Musselman (22-14) saw things a little differently.
The third-seeded Applemen capitalized on a series of uncharacteristic MHS mistakes to capture momentum for a 22-19 lead, which is when Greeny landed awkwardly and appeared to sustain an ankle injury, putting her out for the remainder of the match.
Without their main outside hitter and best server, Morgantown wasn’t able to put up much resistance as Musselman closed out Set 3, 25-20, and then took control mid-set in Set 4 to even the match, 25-17.
It was gut-check time for both teams, and both teams handled the pressure well, grinding to an 11-all stalemate before the Mohigans edged ahead with some clutch serves from junior Izzy Marra, then won it with a combination block from junior Abby Paulson and senior Kelly Ryan for a 15-13 win the fifth and deciding set.
“We always play great the first two sets, and then hit the wall in the third,” senior captain Paige Brink said after the hard-fought win. “And it was tough when Leah went down, because so much of our offense runs through her. It took us a while to find our rhythm, and to get our other hitters into their groove, but we started to play better at the end of Set 4.
“Before the last set, I just reminded everyone that even with Leah out, we were still a good team, and we just needed to play our game. And we did. I think this will really help our team grow and give us confidence heading to states.”
For MHS head coach Abigail Wolfe, the decision to rest Greeny was clear.
“We had another path (to the state tournament), so there was no need to risk any further injury,” Wolfe explained, while also adding it was too early to determine the severity of the damage or Greeny’s availability for the state tournament. “You know, despite all the games we’ve played against top-level competition, this was our first five-set match, and our first really tight match all year. There is simply no way to replicate that pressure in practice, so for us to face that much adversity was important, and I thought we handled it well and played well through that whole stretch.
“You’ve got to recognize that Musselman is a very good team, and I’m kind of glad that we probably won’t play them again.”
Wolfe said the difference was Morgantown High getting back to the basics and executing the plan.
“Before the last set, I told the girls to trust one another, and to have confidence in what we worked on in practice for this match, to execute the gameplan,” Wolfe said. “We did that, and we did it when it counted most. That’s the definition of a good team win.”
