Volleyball: Trick or Treat! Broad Run and Loudoun County to Meet Saturday in One-Game Playoff

By Dan Sousa
VivaLoudoun.com Editor

Ashburn (Oct. 29, 2009) - Broad Run and Loudoun County will meet Saturday in a one-game volleyball playoff at noon at Briar Woods High School after the Raiders put a damper on the Spartans Senior Night Thursday with a 14-25, 25-17, 25-21, 25-19-1 win that leaves the two teams as AA Dulles District co-champions.

For Broad Run, it is the school's first volleyball district title since a back-to-back run in 1990-1991 in the Northwestern District. In 1997 Broad Run captured the AAA Northern Region title. For two-time defending state champion Loudoun County, it was a fourth straight share of the district title.


Loudoun County (11-1, 18-2) needed the win Thursday at Broad Run (11-1, 14-5) because the Spartans had defeated the Raiders earlier in the season in Leesburg. Broad Run cruised to a 1-0 lead after a nearly flawless first game but the Raiders battled back and took the next three to force Saturday's special playoff.

The one-game playoff -- which will determine the Dulles District's top seed in next week's tournament and which school will receive the Region II automatic bid -- is nothing new to Loudoun County as the Raiders defeated Heritage in 2006 and 2008 in one-game playoffs.

In 2006, LC advanced all the way to the state finals before falling and last year LC captured its second consecutive AA state title. Including the special one-game playoffs, the Raiders are 26-1 in postseason play since 2006.

The Raiders were led by: Juliane Hanna (13 kills, 8 digs, 5 points, 3 aces), Jenna Strange (9 kills, 3 blocks, 2 digs), Erin Dancy (7 kills, 6 points, 1 block), Rachel Arigo (6 kills, 3 blocks, 5 points, 2 aces), Molly Baldwin (4 kills, 3 digs, 2 blocks), Robin Marsala (33 assists, 11 digs, 3 kills, 3 points), Gabby Serafin (21 digs, 3 points), Kathleen Horvath (7 digs, 3 aces, 12 points), and Hannah Arnold (7 points, 4 digs, 2 aces).

In the earlier games, the Raider freshmen team finished their season with a perfect 16-0 record after sweeping the Spartans. The LC JV finished their season by avenging one of their two losses with a sweep over Broad Run to finish their season 17-2.

Hanna, who has been on all four LC district title teams, came up with some big kills when the Raiders needed it and the sophomore tandem of Strange and Dancy combined for 16 kills and prevented BR from keying on Hanna.

With the match tied at 1-1, it was evident how close the two teams are as the decisive third game was tied almost the entire way and neither squad could get more than a two-point advantage until the very end with the scored tied 20-20.

First LC went up with Dancy registering a kill and then a good serve by junior Kathleen Horvath resulted in a BR error to make it 22-20 LC. The Spartans got one point back but Hanna just blistered a ball to make it 23-21 and then Strange put an off-speed shot down to make it 24-21. A Broad Run attack went deep and it was game to LC, 25-21.

The Spartans led early in the fourth game so it looked like the fans would be treated to a five-game evening but LC caught BR at 16-16 with a Hanna kill and then with Dancy serving, the Raiders reeled off three straight points starting with an ace by Dancy.

Back-to-back errors forced BR coach Ellen Roberts to call a timeout.

The Spartans responded with a huge kill by junior Emily Sears and a Raider error brought BR within one, but LC took back over after a Spartan service error.

Hannah Arnold's serve kept BR off-balanced and a couple of Broad Run mis-timed attacks plus a nice blocking combination by Robin Marsala and Rachel Arigo brought LC within one of clinching the match.

BR staved off one match point with Sears again connecting with a powerful shot but Hanna was ready to raiser her fourth district banner and she skied above the net and smacked a crosscourt kill to end the evening.

Click here for video interviews from the match

Click here for a photo gallery from the match