Two Delaware County volleyball juggernauts met at Wapahani tonight. The heavy-weight matchup included the Yorktown Tigers (10-1, 2-0) sweeping the previously undefeated Wapahani Raiders (9-1, 2-0) in three sets.
The backbone of the Yorktown squad is the 6’ 2 senior Indiana University commit Charlotte Vinson. Vinson, who went into septic shock this summer, made her return to the lineup tonight and provided a spark to her team.
“Well, I think having Charlotte back tonight was neat for our kids,” Yorktown head coach Stephanie Bloom said. “Having her back was great for us on a team level and her on a personal level.”
Vinson touched on her role of being the peacekeeper. With four years of Varsity experience, she has seen the highest of highs and lowest of lows. She knows staying level headed is important to the success of an individual and team.
“I think I play the biggest role of keeping everyone a little calm,” she said. “A lot of time people can get in their heads and make mistake after mistake. I just think that with me being through that and being that player before, I know now how to get rid of that and help other girls move on.”
The atmosphere at Wapahani is special, even to the standards of other area schools. Coach Bloom enjoys playing in these environments and feels like it gave her team the spark they needed to get off to a quick start in the first set.
“I think we had high emotions,” she said. “Coming out onto this floor with the crowd here and this gym as a whole. It’s always loud here and there’s a lot going on, it can be really tough to play here sometimes. But our kids were dialed in and just knew to take care of our business.”
The Tigers did take care of their business. Wapahani called a timeout after falling in a quick 11-5 hole in the first. Everything was rolling for the Tigers and defense was a huge factor in that.
“Defense is the name of the game for us,” Bloom said. “We really want to beat people in the back 20 but also be physical at the net. I thought our blockers did a great job in the beginning at just slowing down some of their hitters at the net.”
Scrappy play and grinding out points helped to swing momentum back Yorktown’s way after Wapahani picked up a few points. The Raiders called another time out and it was all Yorktown the rest of the way.
“We had great scrap plays to keep some balls alive,” Bloom said. “It gave us some momentum when we needed it, and we earned it.”
The Raiders took some momentum in the second set forcing a Yorktown timeout with an 11-7 lead. After the timeout, Wapahani’s rotation had changed and a new player was at the serve line resulting in Coach Bloom having a conversation with officials that halted play momentarily.
“They had a different girl serving, and I thought ‘that isn’t right’ so I figured that out and I think it kind of helped us on our side get a shift of momentum our way,” she said.
Yorktown swung a three-point deficit to a three-point lead after their timeout. Wapahani’s crowd showed up in full swing and the visiting Tigers used that noise as fuel late into the match.
“It can be so hard to play on the road,” Bloom said. “Especially when another team’s student section is so loud and into the match. Our kids responded well and stayed poised and steady so we did a great job of that.”
Coach Bloom told her team to fuel themselves with the crowd noise and live for the environment. Vinson felt that she and her teammates did a great job of supporting each other and using the crowd noise tonight just like their coach wanted them to.
“I just think our energy was great,” she said. “We cheered every single point and we really played together, especially the first set. As the match went on it got louder in here with their big points, but we held our ground and battled back.”
Vinson proved to be a nuisance to the Raiders all night. Wapahani head coach Valorie Wells told her team during a third set timeout to “just get the ball up.” After the game, Coach Wells elaborated on that point.
“I just wanted them to get the ball up,” she said. “We needed to do our best to get something going and starting with getting the ball up in the air was what we needed to do. I told them to do our best working our offense from there, get the ball up, and make plays happen from there. We wanted to get anything going and hopefully force their hand at a mistake and score points that way. When we were doing that we were doing well but it was just too inconsistent for us.”
Yorktown controlled most of the third set with similar action. Wapahani gave the Tigers a late scare, scoring six unanswered points but Vinson’s leadership rang true in the Yorktown huddle.
“I kept telling them, just focus on the next ball,” she said. “A lot of our girls get blocked or make an error and then that snowballs into more mistakes. I told them next ball, you got this, we will win this match. We always want to uplift each other and I think that’s what makes us special.”
Yorktown will look to build on a winning streak at home against Pendleton Heights (4-5, 0-1) on Thursday, Sept. 5, at 7 p.m.
Wapahani will look to bounce back as they travel to Jay County (3-1) on Thursday night at the same time.
Contact Logan Connor via email at logan.connor@bsu.edu or on X @_loganconnor
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