Shady Spring's dominance continues into regional
Nov. 3—Another year, another sectional championship for Shady Spring.
The Tigers had to hit the road this week, but they successfully defended their Class AA Region 3, Section 2 championship at Herbert Hoover. It is the fifth consecutive sectional title for the Tigers, who played in each of the last four state title matches.
The question going into the season was how the Tigers would respond to losing two first-team all-staters in Meg Williams — the 2022 West Virginia Sports Writers Association Player of the Year and the Gatorade West Virginia Player of the Year — and Chloe Thompson. Both are now having big freshman seasons at Concord.
The Tigers (41-9-2) have responded nicely.
"You always want to have that expectation (of winning) and meet that expectation. I don't want to say I thought it was going to go this way, but this is a good group of girls," first-year coach Brantlea Wood said. "I've been saying that since the beginning of the year. It's a good group. It's a strong program that I was left to."
That's for sure, and Wood has done a good job of navigating the team to a continuation of the program's dominance. It was just a matter of nailing down the team's identity.
"With heavy hitters like Meg and Chloe, there's always going to be the, who's going to be our go-to?" Wood said. "We've had to make it more of a six people on the floor (mentality). We use all six people. We've got great hitters, but Meg and Chloe were always go-to. So we've had to use everybody. And I think spreading it out has helped us a lot, too."
That's certainly true.
Sophomore Reagan Mann has 349 kills, sophomore Alivia Stover 299, senior Camille Testerman 259 and junior Rachel Mann 257. Stover has 65 blocks, Testerman 40 and Reagan Mann 37.
Testerman leads the way with 477 serve receives, followed by sophomore Kennedi Creager with 412. Rachel Mann has 327. Senior Haley Sweeney has 101 aces and 353 service points. Testerman has a 97.9 serve percentage.
Sweeney also 644 assists and Reagan Mann 522.
"All six on the floor, all nine in the lineup that play bring something different to the floor," Wood said. "We need each player, because they bring a different dynamic. They all bring sonething different.
"It's kind of like a puzzle. If we're missing one of them, or if one of them's not fitting, I'm not going to say we're completely incomplete, but we're not whole."
The starting six typically consists of Testerman, Sweeney, Stover, Reagan Mann, Rachel Mann and Bristol Bloomfield. Creager comes in for Bloomfield at libero, Allie Fragile enters for Sweeney on the front row and Jenna Joyce takes over for Stover in the back row.
Bloomfield, Fragile and Joyce are freshmen who have played key roles.
"They have really started to come into their own," Wood said. "They were a little timid at first; that's kind of to be expected. But they have really blossomed. Jenna didn't start on varsity, but since she's been pulled up (from JV) she's been in the lineup."
The Region 3 tournament will be held today at Independence. Section 1 champion Wyoming East (31-11-1) will take on Herbert Hoover (37-19-2) at 6 p.m., followed by Shady and Section 1 runner-up PikeView (3-34-1) at about 7 p.m.
Both winners will qualify for next week's state tournament, but will play for the regional title.
Email: gfauber@register-herald.com; follow on Twitter @gfauber5
