Howard volleyball beats Centennial, earns share of county title with Mt. Hebron

With their backs against the wall, the Lions put it all on the line in the third set. Tied at 7, they went on an 8-2 run to take a 15-9 lead en route to winning the set behind four kills from senior Sara Binkley (11 kills, 4 blocks) and consistent serving from Madison Paige (14 kills).

Scott said that run changed the momentum of the match and gave his team the energy and confidence to complete the comeback.

"When you start to get that energy, you start feeding off it, and so your play gets stronger and stronger and stronger," he said. "We kind of pride ourselves on making the other team call a timeout on our server, so when they called a timeout [at 13-9] we got a little more excited. It's just an energy thing.

"Winning the third game is when we actually realized we can win this thing. The comeback in the third game was all it took."

In the fourth set, Howard went to its most consistent and powerful hitter in Sweet and rode another string of reliable serves from Paige, who was behind the line for an 11-0 run that turned a two-point deficit into a 21-12 lead. Sweet knocked down 10 kills in the stanza, including four in its final six points, to force the deciding set.

"Games three and four ... they played some really good volleyball and made an adjustment here or there," said Centennial coach Michael Bossom. "We found it more and more difficult to score points and then we got tentative and they started playing even better defense. I credit them for taking us out of what we wanted to do in those two games."

Teams often take pride in being the first to win points five and 10 in the fifth set, and Howard did just that. It went on a 4-0 run to take a 6-3 advantage, and after the Eagles tied things at 6 after a pair of kills from Rachel Mathew (22 kills), the Lions got a kill from Anna Jezerski and a pair of aces from Sweet to take the lead for good. Paige hammered two more kills, Binkley had another and then Kundrat put down the match-winning kill.

"That kill meant the world to us," Kundrat said. "We have worked so hard this season and coach Scott said from the beginning that this is a special group, and he knew we could do something special. Last year we had it taken away from us so this year we proved to everyone that we can still do it."

Most of the county will compete against each other in the 3A East regional playoffs, but the Lions' road to a state championship runs through the 4A North region. Howard fell in the regional final a year ago.

Centennial, meanwhile, which had a six-game winning streak snapped, will likely be the No. 2 or 3 seed in their section behind Mt. Hebron and possibly Wilde Lake. Bossom said he liked what he saw from his team in the first two sets, adding his team played some of its best volleyball of the season in the second set, which saw 18 total kills from the Eagles.

"I think they showed us some things that we need to improve on," Bossom said. "That was part of our conversation afterwards – what are we going to work on? ... We have four or five days of practice before our next competition and we'll figure out who we play Monday and we'll move forward from there."

Mt. Hebron clinches share of county title

Mt. Hebron swept defending county champion River Hill Thursday night to earn a share of the league title with Howard.

"It's just a culmination of a good year with a lot of hard work," said Vikings coach Michael Moynihan. "It's been a great group of girls who bought in early."

Mt. Hebron, which lost to Howard in five sets in the season opener on Sept. 8, has reeled off 13 straight wins and dropped just five sets total along the way.

"[The girls] were so excited," Moynihan said. "We sort of had locked up home court in the sectional playoffs on Tuesday, but the girls said 13-1 sounds so much better than 12-2, and River Hill has ruined our senior day like four times in my 10 years at Mt. Hebron, so it was nice to get a little pay back on their senior day."

Though the draw won't be announced until Monday, the Vikings will be the top seed and have a bye in the first round of the 3A East, Section I playoffs, which will start Nov. 3 or 4.

Other scores:

Atholton (9-2, 10-4) def. Oakland Mills (3-8, 6-8) – 3-0 [25-13, 25-17, 25-10]

Atholton stats: Sam Miller (8 kills, 1 assist, 10 digs, 4 aces), Lisa Zoch (8 kills, 1 assist, 1 dig), Brooke Mason (8 kills, 1 ace, 1 assist), Hope Kelly (4 kills, 25 assists, 8 digs, 2 aces), Elise Park (1 kill, 2 assists, 12 digs), Kelly Simons (2 kills, 2 assists, 2 aces), Kira Thompson (2 kills, 7 digs), Nikki Rajarajan (1 kill)

Oakland Mills stats: Merina Seldon (13 digs), Naimah Jangha (14 assists, 5 digs), Rachel Snead (2 aces, 1 kill, 6 digs), Alana Joseph (1 ace, 4 kills, 5 digs), Jordyn Reese (1 ace, 2 kills), Nya Lightfoot (5 kills, 4 digs)

Glenelg (4-7, 7-7) def. Hammond (0-11, 3-11) – 3-0 [25-9, 25-16, 25-18]

Glenelg stats: Colleen McAuley (13 kills), Kara Crawford (6 kills), Maddie Southern (28 assists, 4 digs), Emma Buch (4 kills, 2 aces), Alex Wood (8 digs)

Hammond stats: Nailah Melvin (4 kills, 4 digs), Grace Cheney (2 aces, 3 kills), Kelly Smith (9 digs, 1 ace), Tamara Sweeney (6 digs, 1 kill, 1 ace), Imani Reid (2 kills, 1 block)

Wilde Lake (7-4, 10-4) def. Reservoir (7-4, 10-4) 3-0 [25-15, 25-21, 29-27]

Wilde Lake stats: Camille Johnson (15 kills, 3 aces, 1 block, 10 digs), Sydney Tucker (12 kills), Rachel Eisenhauer (3 kills, 2 aces, 6 digs), Armani Cromwell (3 kills, 2 blocks), Mumbi Murugi-Kamau (2 kills, 7 kills, 3 blocks), Emma Jordan (13 digs), Faith Leslie (32 assists, 13 digs)

Reservoir stats: Sydney Allen (10 kills, 1 ace, 7 digs), Amaka Chukwujekwu (9 kills, 3 aces, 1 block, 8 digs), Enitan Omolewa (9 kills, 2 blocks), Brooke Saunderson (4 digs, 26 assists), Liz Harvey (7 digs)

Marriotts Ridge (4-7, 6-7) def. Long Reach (1-10, 4-10) – 3-0