Perfect finish for motivated Raiders
Atholton caps dominant season with 2nd title in three years
Leading 24-15 in the third and final set of its perfect season, Atholton girls volleyball coach Larry Schofield called a timeout. The Raiders huddled together and smiled and laughed, soaking in the last moments of a season that will be remembered for years to come.
“We had 38 seconds left in the timeout and I said, ‘Enjoy this, because you’re about to win a state championship,’ ” Schofield said. “It doesn’t really get any better than that.”
Sophomore outside hitter Ryan Rorls pounded down a kill on the next point to give the No. 1 Raiders a 25-16, 25-16, 25-15 straight-set victory over No. 7 Bel Air in the 3A state championship game Tuesday night at University of Maryland’s Ritchie Coliseum to win their second state title in three years and finish the campaign a perfect 19-0.
The 3-0 win was their 17th of the season, as they capped the year winning 57 of the 60 sets they played in one of the toughest counties in the state, but nothing they accomplished came as a surprise to anybody on the team.
On the home screen of senior libero Elise Park’s iPhone is a conversation she had with senior outside hitter Lisa Zoch on Sept. 14.
“It said we were bringing this team to the state championships and winning it all,” Park said. “And I kept that, and we did it.”
Schofield, who took over as head coach this fall after previously being an assistant, never shied away from talking about the lofty expectations, either. Whether it was during summer workouts or early-season practices, winning the state title was always the hope.
“We kept talking about, where are we going to be on the 20th of November? I tell them, write it on the ceiling, write it on the mirror in lipstick or something so that 20th of November is always something in your view,” he said. “It’s a dream until you write it down. Once you write it down, it becomes a goal and something tangible.”
The way Atholton handled the Bobcats should also come as no surprise. Senior outside hitter Lisa Zoch, the 2017 Howard County Player of the Year, and Rorls led the offense on the biggest stage of the season with 14 and nine kills, respectively, while Park dug everything and commanded one of the best defenses Howard County has seen in years.
Most importantly, they did it their way: having more fun than everyone else. Like their semifinal victory over Westminster, they danced between sets instead of talking strategy because energy is simply all they need to dominate.
“The communication and energy was there, and for our team that’s such a big aspect,” Zoch said. “We feed off of each other’s energy and positivity, and everyone really brought that tonight.”
Park had a different but more colorful analogy to describe their supremacy.
“I feel like we were like a lawnmower. We just plowed through them,” she said. “Nothing stopped us. Everything they would do we would adjust. We just focused on our side and we did our job.”