Spartans fall in state semifinal
BIRMINGHAM — The Mountain Brook High School volleyball team fell to top-ranked McGill-Toolen, 3-0 (16-25, 10-25, 20-25), in Wednesday night’s Class 7A state semifinal at the Birmingham CrossPlex.
The defeat dashed the Spartans’ (30-18) hopes of claiming a fourth consecutive state title. No other team has won a 7A blue map since the classification was created in 2014.
“Today, McGill was the better team,” said Mountain Brook first-year head coach Vickie Nichols. “I mean, they were clicking on all cylinders. I hadn’t seen them play that well all year. It wasn’t anything we weren’t doing.”
Mountain Brook traded punches with McGill-Toolen through the first half of the opening set. The teams were tied at 5-5 and 10-10 before the Dirty Dozen went on a roll. They utilized their power and size as they closed the frame on a 13-4 run.
McGill-Toolen parlayed its momentum into the second set, jumping out to a 10-1 lead. Mountain Brook’s Sarah Catherine Cooper recorded back-to-back kills to help her team turn it around. But it was too late to catch up.
The Spartans dug a similar hole in the third set, as they fell behind 9-2. The team could have tossed in the towel at that point. Instead, it chose to make a stand.
Ellen Dulin and Mary Katherine Fowlkes assisted on a block; Grace Carr fired a kill, and Cooper did the same. An ace from Dulin gave the Spartans a 12-11 edge.
Mountain Brook extended its lead to 15-12 before McGill-Toolen flipped a switch. It tied it at 18-18 then won seven of the final nine points.
“I’m really proud of them. They didn’t give up,” Nichols said. “They kept fighting, just clawing and trying to get back in it, and that’s all we can do.”
Cooper led the team with six kills and contributed eight digs, while Carr recorded three kills and eight digs. Ann Vandevelde had a team-high 10 digs, including a couple that required her to sprawl full extension onto the floor. Libby Grace Gann, the team’s lone senior, posted 16 assists. Ellie Dayhuff led the way with four blocks.
Mountain Brook, with a roster composed of 10 sophomores, will return 11 of its 12 players next season. Dulin is the only junior.
“They have come so far and made huge strides this entire season,” Nichols said. “Nobody thought we’d get this far, so this is a great thing. They’ve just got to remember what this feels like and take it into next season because we’ll be older.”
Their youthfulness didn’t seem to matter on Wednesday afternoon, as they swept Baker, 3-0 (25-6, 25-15, 25-16), in the state quarterfinal.
“We wanted to finish in three,” Nichols said. “We didn’t want to play any more than three games, and we did it. We took care of it.”
Mountain Brook started on a roll and never slowed down. The Spartans scored the first four points of the match, including a pair of aces from Gann. They jumped out to a 10-4 lead, forcing Baker to take a timeout -- a theme that would be repeated multiple times.
Mountain Brook scored 16 of the final 18 points to claim a 25-6 win in the first set.
Carr, Cooper and the rest of the Spartans hitters fueled the way to another dominant second set, and the third set was much of the same.
Carr led the way offensively with 10 kills and added 12 digs. Cooper racked up nine kills and four digs in the match. Gann was solid as usual at the setter spot, tallying 29 assists and 13 digs. Liz Vandevelde accumulated 16 digs, as she led the defensive performance. Dayhuff finished with five blocks.
Nichols attributed a strong start by a team largely inexperienced on the big stage to last week’s showing at the North Super Regional, where the Spartans emerged as the No. 2 seed and took Bob Jones to five sets.
“They’ve now come to the point where they believe that we can,” Nichols said. “They’ve played hard all year and they’ve seen the progress and they’ve seen us fight, fight and fight.”