Players and coaches from Xavier Prep were like everyone else across the high school volleyball landscape, monitoring scores from Thursday night’s (Nov. 4) first round of the 6A Conference state tournament.
The Xavier
contingent was particularly interested in the match between 14th-seeded
Queen Creek and No. 3 Gilbert Perry at Perry. The sixth-seeded Gators expected
to play Perry, their Premier Region rival, in Tuesday’s (Nov. 9) quarterfinal
round after a 3-0 sweep of visiting No. 11 Chandler Basha.
That side of
the bracket sat unmoved for a long time as just about every other score came
in.
The typical thought
process would be, “Well, it’s probably taking so long because Queen Creek is
beating Perry.’’
The score
eventually was posted, and, Whhaaatttt?
The unthinkable
became a reality.
In one of
the biggest upsets of this or any season, Queen Creek captured the match, 3-2.
It wasn’t so
much that the Bulldogs defeated Perry, but how
they did it.
Perry (31-9)
won the first two games, 25-18 and 25-22, but the roof caved in. Queen Creek
rallied for 25-22, 25-20 and 16-14 wins to take the match.
Combined
with Xavier’s 25-19. 25-19, 25-17 triumph over Basha, that means the Gators
(23-10) will have another home match they didn’t think they would have. So
Queen Creek (22-15) will come calling for the quarterfinal at 6:30 p.m.
The three
other quarterfinals are No. 8 Scottsdale Chaparral at No. 1 Phoenix Sandra Day
O’Connor, No. 12 Phoenix Desert Vista at No. 4 Tempe Corona del Sol, and No. 7
Peoria Liberty at No. 2 Chandler Hamilton, the defending state champion.
It had been
a week since Xavier had played its final regular-season match, a 3-0 sweep of
Mesa High that ended a three-match losing streak, all sweeps, to Perry, Corona
del Sol and Hamilton.
Was the
break beneficial, allowing the Gators to recharge their batteries, or did it
make them think too much about what was ahead of them? Sometimes, it can be the
latter.
“It was a
lot of waiting . . . we just wanted to play,’’ said Xavier coach Lamar-Renee
Bryant.
Against
Basha (18-20), the Gators seemed relaxed rather than uptight that often can
come as part of the tournament opener.
“We were
excited to take care of business,’’ Bryant said.
The serves
and passes were on target, the kills and blocks were forceful and the digs were
frequent.
Xavier
accounted for 66 digs, including 21 by senior libero Hannah Ulisch, who was
selected as the Player of the Game by her coaches.
Senior
outside hitter Emma Soderstrom had a fine all-around match with 16 kills, 3
blocks and 16 digs. Sophomore outside hitter Finley Workman had 6 kills and 15
digs, senior setter Alexa Shiner had 30 assists and senior middle blocker Bella
Sinacori had 5 kills and 2 blocks.
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