Volleyball playoff roundup: Ridgeview, Middleburg set up rematch, Sharks stun Gulf Breeze
When Ridgeview's ride turned rocky, Katie Cole found a second wind in the fourth set.
"It's like a breakthrough moment," the Ridgeview junior said. "Our energy started to pick up, and we really wanted to win and push through."
That they did, when Cole took control for Ridgeview and slammed the door on the season of the second-year Barracudas 25-23, 25-17, 15-25, 25-14 in Saturday's Florida High School Athletic Association Region 1-5A volleyball semifinal.
Cole tallied five of her 10 kills in the fourth set to spark an 8-0 run, then teamed up with senior high scorers Haley Robinson and Brianna Adams to put the match away against a young Beachside roster. Robinson led with 21 kills and Adams added 13.
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For coach Stephen Henry, Cole's performance highlighted Ridgeview's strength in depth to accompany Wright State commit Robinson, who racked up 259 kills and a Northeast Florida-best 133 blocks in 2023.
"They turned on all their steam and they came firing out full force," Henry said.
Beachside (22-6), which had lost a regular-season sweep to Ridgeview on Oct. 3, didn't make it easy. The Barracudas grasped the upper hand in the third, keyed by consecutive aces from Laney Lipovetsky, and limited the damage for a time from Ridgeview's favored down-the-middle power.
"They have a lot of physicality and they're also super clean," Beachside coach Austin Lanteigne said. "We tried to challenge them in certain ways, and I think we were able to do that in stretches, but it's hard to be able to do that for an entire match because they have so many options."
Beachside graduates three seniors in Lipovetsky, Kaitlyn Adams and Lainie Stapleton, but is due to return most of its lineup — including sophomore scoring leader Adriana Jeanpierre and versatile setters Erica Duffy and Mollie VanDeusen.
Sydney Little recorded 38 digs and Mariah Bostic-Jones supplied 29 assists for the Panthers, who travel to county rival Middleburg with eyes on the final four in Winter Haven. Ridgeview (20-7) enters its third consecutive regional final, after losing its final-eight match to Lynn Haven Mosley in 2021 and to Ocala Vanguard in 2022.
Middleburg, top seed in Class 5A, moved on with a sweep against Tallahassee Lincoln (19-10), which got 12 kills from Allison Tawney. The Broncos (24-5) extended their winning streak to seven matches.
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REGION 1-6A
No matter the record, Ponte Vedra showed again that it's a threat to win it all come playoff time.
Traveling to the Alabama border and emerging with a victory, Ponte Vedra kept its playoff run going with a 25-22, 14-25, 25-20, 19-25, 15-7 upset at top seed Gulf Breeze (23-3).
The Sharks (15-13) chomp their way to a Wednesday night match at Tallahassee Chiles. Ponte Vedra is one win away from its seventh Final Four appearance in nine years. The team won state titles in 2017, 2019 and 2020.
"I'm not a big numbers guy, but I really set (the players) up to play some of the hardest teams all year long," Sharks head coach John Goings said. "And they've just learned and slowly kept getting better and better because we were playing that great competition. It's really on their backs, they're the ones shining right now. … It's been fun to watch them mature as players and young, fine athletes coming up into their own."
There wasn't a finer athlete on the floor than senior middle blocker Chelsea Sutton. The 6-foot-4 senior, who is committed to play at the University of Tennessee, was force both offensively and defensively, finishing with team-highs of 18 kills and seven blocks.
Her booming kill and an emphatic block on back-to-back plays gave the visitors a 5-1 advantage early in the fifth. The teams traded points until a Sutton ace put the Sharks ahead 8-3. Gulf Breeze scored the next point, but would not get closer as point kills from sophomore outside hitter Leah Grall and Paige Murphy allowed Ponte Vedra to seize control.
Fittingly, the senior delivered the final blow of the evening, smacking down a quick attack into open space in the middle of the Dolphins defense.
Patrick Bernadeau/Pensacola News-Journal
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: High school volleyball playoffs: Northeast Florida FHSAA Saturday
