Galway battles, falls short
Tired Golden Eagles elated to even be competing on Sunday
Not long after spending four sets fighting along with her teammates for a Class D girls’ volleyball state title, Julia Reedy showed her softer side as she and teammate Anna Dabrowski posed for pictures with a stuffed green dinosaur wearing a Galway volley T-shirt and sporting a state finalist medal around its neck.
The senior star was exhausted, proud, and elated to even be competing Sunday after how Saturday started for the Golden Eagles in pool play.
“Honestly, we did so much and I am really happy to be here,” Reedy said. “I thought we could make it this far and I was hoping everyone wanted to go this far. We worked really hard.”
Galway won the second set in the final and had a clear chance to capture the third, but ultimately dropped a 3-1 decision against the Section IX champs Mount Academy.
Midway through Saturday’s six pool play sets and its match with Pavilion, Galway was winless and starring straight at elimination.
They rallied to win the next three sets — including two straight against 2019 state champion Candor to advance to the final Sunday.
“I am so proud of them,” Galway coach Mike Glenn said. “(Saturday), we start 0-3 and you’re like on your last lifeline. If you drop set four, you are definitely done. We were down 19-11 and battled back. We expended so much energy just to get here.”
Glenn said he had a hard time sleeping Saturday night wondering his squad had emptied its energy reserves during pool play. Mount Academy looked invincible in the opening set Saturday and cruised to a 25-14 win.
Buoyed by the play from Reedy (13 kills), junior libero Jayden Devillis (26 digs), sophomore hitter Amber Kolpakas (10 kills built an early in the second set, and spent the back half of the set going back and forth. Eventually, Galway won 25-23 to hand Mount Academy its only lost set of the weekend.
Over the final two sets, the depth, strength, and skill displayed by the Section IX champions proved too much to overcome. Tournament Most Valuable Player Cynthia Boller registered 20 kills, Rudy Moody added 15 kills and setter Kaitlyn Arnold delivered 55 assists.
“We really never gave up. We were really fighting,” Reedy said. “The last set, we struggled a little bit on serve receive. We just couldn’t find something that would work. Mount did really really well. They kept a lot of balls in play. They hit very hard.”
“The kids played hard the whole time. They never gave up,” Glenn said of his squad.