Wow, what a long day of awesome volleyball on Saturday!  With 16 teams invited, including Campolindo and Carondelet, the field was quite impressive.  There were 4 pools with 4 teams in each pool.  Top 2 teams of each pool moved on to single elimination match play.  

In the Acalanes group pool, we had Carondelet, Windsor, and Ukiah.  Our girls started off game 1 against Ukiah. In set one, Sophia Terry came out with a strong kill to start us off. Stella Larkin had some crushing serves with pinpoint accuracy to keep the momentum rolling.  When Ukiah had good serves, Rena Liu had amazing saves including a one-armed, off-the-court save that led to points for Acalanes. This led to a 25-18 first set win.  In set two, Piper Coy had a nice run of 5 serves in a row that led to points for our team.  Again, Stella Larkin had great serves that led us to a huge 25-12 second set win to take the match.  

Our second game came against Windsor.  In set one, Addie Ames started us with a nasty slam to get the ball rolling.  Sophia Terry followed with a great block straight down to give Acalanes an important point.  Windsor came out strong though and took set one, 19-25.  Could this be our first loss??  In the second set, another beautiful roof block by Sophia Terry and sweet serves by Christina Hageboeck started to change the direction of the match.  Two monster kills by Kylah Fox also helped contribute to the 25-18 second set win.  Set three would determine the match.  Annie Baker had a great block at the net, Stella Larkin, from the back row, had an amazing hit to win a point.  We took a big lead and never looked back.  Campbell Evans finished off the set and match with an ace, winning 15-6!  Our undefeated season continues at 8-0!

The third game saw us go up against local rival Carondelet.  Wow, what a first set this turned out to be!  Addi Ames and Sophia Terry kick-off set one with huge kills.  Nisa Khoury and Annie Baker had big blocks to really get momentum on our side.  Nice serving by Fiona Roux really made a difference in this first set.  Back and forth this set went with excellent play by both teams.  Acalanes pulled out a 30-28 win!  In set two, more blocks by our “wall of fire” front line really did some damage along with great serving by Piper Coy and Rena Liu that led to a 25-18 second set win and the match.

Now, the single elimination match play began with a match-up against the hosts, Sonoma High School.  Acalanes didn’t seem intimated that they were playing the home team.  We came out hot with multiple kills by Piper Coy and led us to a 25-14 first set win.  In set two, Christina Hageboeck was setting up our outside hitter, Annie Baker, with great sets to keep us in the lead.  We were never really threatened as Acalanes won the second set 25-14 and the match to take us into the semifinal against Santa Rosa’s Maria Carillo.  

In set one, against Maria Carillo, Addi Ames and Kylah Fox had pounding kills that could be felt in Lafayette.  Christina Hageboech had multiple aces to take us into the lead.  Stella Larkin also had an amazing dig that saved a point and kept our team in the match.  Acalanes took the first set, 25-19.  In the second set, with power and precision, Addi Ames again had a monster kill.  Eliza Gullberg had a sweet dig to save a point too.  With Nisa Khoury serving, Acalanes finished off the set and match 25-22.  

The sixth and final game of the day, which was the Championship match, came against Redwood High School from Larkspur.  It was definitely going to be a tough test as they had multiple front-line players at 6 feet tall.  Redwood came out smoking, taking a 9-0 lead.  It would have been easy for our girls to just fold up their tent and be happy with a second-place finish after this start.  Not our girls!  With great serving by Rena and some nice slams by Kylah Fox and Annie Baker, we fought back.  Unfortunately, we came up a bit short and lost set one by the score of 21-25.  In set two, Acalanes again found themselves in a big hole, down 4-10.  Digging deep, our team was able to get to 17-18 and hopefully push the championship match to a third and final set.  Redwood ended up being just a bit too tough to overcome and came away with the win 19-25 to take the match and first place trophy.  It was a great run by our JV Girls Volleyball team and gets us ready to start the regular season coming up! Way to go team! Congratulations to Rena Liu, for being named to the All-Tournament Team and Happy Birthday to Kaylah Fox, who celebrated that day!