’Cats wild about season despite falling in final
Defending champions send Arundel to only setback
COLLEGE PARK — There’s no next year for Chyna Gubbings. Not for Alicia Eldredge nor Taylor Wigglesworth.
Tears after Saturday’s volleyball state title match represented the Arundel seniors’ disappointment, but didn’t define the story of their season.
“It’s just the fact that we made it here and the bonds that we made, and the sisterhood that this is — the family — that really means the most out of this whole entire experience,” Wigglesworth said. “Win or lose, undefeated or not, it’s the family that we’ve made.”
The No. 1 Wildcats entered Saturday undefeated, played in their first Class 4A state title match since 2012 and won the first set, but lost to defending champion Northwest, 24-26, 25-19, 25-16, 25-11.
Northwest (19-0), a Montgomery County powerhouse, claimed its third straight state title at Ritchie Coliseum on the campus of the University of Maryland. The Jaguars were led by junior outside hitter Jenaisya Moore’s 33 kills.
Mackenzie Meehan led Arundel (21-1) with 12 kills and three aces. Freshman Brooke Watts had 11 kills and six digs. Eldredge tallied 37 assists and Gubbings had a team-high 13 digs along with nine kills. But the team committed 47 total errors, including 34 hitting errors.
“When there are a lot of unforced errors, set, but before long it was 12-5 Northwest. Arundel scored three in a row, but for a while after that they couldn’t string two points together as the Jaguars’ strikes were too powerful. Arundel’s momentum was gone.