The Santa Fe (Alachua) volleyball team ascended to No. 1 in Class 4A in the latest MaxPreps rankings.
But on Tuesday night at Bud Seymour Gymnasium, the Raiders found themselves in a 10-point hole on the road in the opening set before rallying to sweep host Buchholz 25-21, 25-7, 25-22.
“Gia’s (McGrew) first three swings were errors,” said Santa Fe coach Eric Marshall. “That puts us in a really bad spot when our best offensive player can’t put a ball away. She was struggling.”
McGrew (6 kills, 5 digs) finished with just a .158 hitting percentage but it wasn’t just the University of Iowa commit who had an off night.
“The real tale to me was that Gracyn (Marshall, a West Florida commit) was really off tonight,” Marshall said. “She had a really bad night serving, setting, defensively she lost some confidence. She’s one of our leaders so when she’s off we’re going to struggle because people look to her to be on.”
Fortunately, the team recognized that and got some key contributions from other players to rally past the Bobcats (8-10), who had jumped out to a quick 19-9 lead in the opening set following a kill by senior Jovanna Pettigrew (6 kills).
“We had a game plan going into the game and the kids did a great job executing it but then towards the back end there they stopped following it,” said Buchholz coach Andre Medina. “Part of that is on me and making sure that I hold them responsible a little bit sooner, but the game plan worked in that first half of that first set.”
Following kills by junior Delaney Wingenbach (team-leading 7 kills) and freshman Emarie Carlisle (3 kills, 2 blocks), the Raiders cut the deficit to 19-11.
Sophomore Karlee Noah (team-leading 12 digs) followed that up with consecutive aces, including one that clipped the net and seemed to give the Raiders (17-4) a little momentum.
Santa Fe had three players in double figures in scoring, led by junior Morgan Lawson with 12 service points, and followed by freshman Reagan Adkins and Brooke Findley with 10 apiece.
Lawson had seven service points late as the Raiders finished the opening set with an 8-0 run to take a 1-0 lead.
“That’s where most of our points came from,” Marshall said. “We had 32 points with just those three players so serving was huge for us tonight. When we weren’t getting aces from them we were getting them out of system and they made some hitting errors which helped us out a lot.”
In the second set, a kill by Wingenbach fueled an 11-0 run as Findley finished with 10 service points, along with a pair of aces.
“In the second set, we were clicking,” Marshall said. “We got some blocks. Brooke got some kills in that second set, and Delaney was almost unstoppable when they got her the ball up high because she can jump so high. I thought those were our two best offensive weapons tonight.”
In the third set, Santa Fe built as much as an eight-point lead, but the Bobcats got three straight aces by senior Leila Ricks (4 aces, 6 service points) to close the gap at 24-22.
However, a kill by McGrew closed the door on a potential comeback.
“Our passing was great, our defense did a good job getting balls up, serve/receive did a good job passing balls, but our setter connection just wasn’t there,” Medina said. “For us, we’re kind of a team that has to do everything all the time at a high level so when one or two things don’t add up, sometimes we don’t succeed.”
Santa Fe was scheduled to host The Rock on Thursday. However, if they are unable to play due to Tropical Storm Helene, the two have agreed to play on Monday, Oct. 7.
Their next scheduled game is at Gainesville this Tuesday at 7 p.m.
“Buchholz is a really tough place to play,” Marshall said. “We were very fortunate to win this game tonight. If this happens against GHS or The Rock, or St. Johns, we’re going to lose.”
Freshman Demmi Strappy added six kills, freshman Julia Almond had a team-leading 23 assists, and senior Rosy Logan had a team-leading digs for Buchholz, which will travel to St. John Lutheran (Ocala) on Tuesday followed by a home game against rival GHS next Thursday at 7 p.m.
