Headed into the last game of the season, the JV volleyball team had only won two games, and to make matters worse, they had to face the high flying Rockbridge County Wildcats to cap it all off. For sophomore Ava Rath, the focus was on energy, as that is what generally fuels their team.

“Keeping our energy up [was a point of emphasis] because when our energy isn’t up, we tend to be lazy and slack [off]. Rockbridge is really good, so if we wanted to win we needed to be fully energized and into the game the whole time,” Rath said.    

Down 17-9, the Streaks called a time out hoping to miraculously flip the momentum. This attempt failed. The Streaks were only able to tally five more points, losing the first set 25-16.900

Using the first set win, the wildcats took a commanding second set lead of 11-2 before HHS JV head coach Danae Delozier called a time out. 

“My biggest message was, ‘this will probably be the last timeout I call and probably the last 20 points of the season,’ so I wanted them to leave everything out on the court because that was going to be their last opportunity to do so,” Delozier said.

Though Delozier encouraged they finish with their all, it was unforced errors that prevented the Streaks from making any offensive push. They tallied 16 unforced errors in the second set alone, and Rockbridge’s strong hitters capitalized. 

“The amount of unforced errors we had was pretty unusual for us, we hadn’t done that in a long time,” Delozier said. “I really wanted to stress that they step up their game a little bit because I knew that they had the skills to compete with and beat Rockbridge.”

Using this message, the Streaks pushed an exciting three point rally on the opposing match point, but it wasn’t enough as a missed shot ended the game losing in two straight sets and drawing their season to a close.