Altavista survives in five, advances to Region B final

ALTAVISTA — They’d been there before. A fifth game to decide who advances to the Group A state tournament. One point away.

Last year, Altavista came up one point short. This year, it closed the deal, and now will face the team it lost to in that epic fifth game last year for the 2009 Region B championship as the Colonels came back from 2-1 down to win a five-game slugfest over Madison County, 3-2 (23-25, 25-20, 15-25, 25-22, 15-11).

“You plant seeds at the beginning of the year,” Altavista head coach Debbie Spencer said after the match. “You also try to plant little seeds in their head like ‘We’re even with this team.’ Those seeds blossomed right when they needed it most.”

The Colonels will play Strasburg on Saturday for the Region B championship on their home court. Strasburg knocked off Altavista’s Dogwood District counterpart Nelson County, 3-0, (25-21, 25-11, 25-21) on Thursday to reach the finals.

From the first serve Thursday in Altavista, it was evident that the two teams were going to leave it all on the court. In the first game, the teams traded the lead, neither side taking more than a two-point edge until Madison County finally pushed out to a four-point advantage. And, thanks to senior outside hitter Tori Puryear, Madison County was able to pull out a 25-23 win. The two teams traded the lead 16 times.

Game 2 was more of the same as both sides traded the lead over and over. One team would take the lead, then would give it right back. Just when it looked like Madison County had the momentum, Spencer called a timeout and Altavista roared back and finally took control going on to take the game 25-20.

Game three was more of the same, until Altavista was called for an illegal substitution while leading 14-9. The Mountaineers pounced on the opportunity and scored 16 of the final 17 points in the game to take a dominating 25-15 win, and looked to finally have control of the match.

Another defining moment came in game 4. Madison County led by three when junior setter Jordan Aylor rolled her left ankle. She played on but the Colonels took advantage of the injury, reclaiming the momentum after a hitting error by the Mountaineers, and went on to take the game, 25-22, to force the decisive fifth game.

After the teams traded side outs the first eight points, Madison took a 6-5 lead. It looked like the teams would continue trading points, but Altavista, as it had done all night, dug down and ran off three straight points to take a lead it would never relinquish. It fought off a number of rallies before finally closing out the match, 15-11.

When asked after the match how it felt to reach the state tournament, senior outside hitter Andra Brumfield described it as “amazing.” She gave high praise to a number of younger players, including sophomore Lori Cox who was able to rebound from a couple of hitting errors in the fourth game and had a key kill in Game 5 to help keep the Colonels in front.

Next up is Strasburg, a team which rallied from 14-9 down in the fifth game to knock off Altavista in the Region B semifinals last year. That’s a fact that isn’t lost on any of the members of this year’s team.

“We’ve got some things to take care of,” Brumfield said.