Perfection doesn’t come easily, especially when everyone is aiming for you.
That’s what makes Valor Christian’s back-to-back Class 5A state volleyball titles so impressive.
The Eagles beat Fossil Ridge in five thrilling sets (21-25, 25-16, 25-13, 19-25 and 15-12) Saturday night at a rockin’ Denver Coliseum to complete a 29-0 season and raise the trophy for the second straight year.
“We have a target on our backs simply because we are Valor,” coach Jayne McHugh said. “But we also have a target on our backs because we are the defending state champs.
“And my goodness, gracious I’m proud of these girls.”
In their second match of the season, Valor beat an injured Fossil Ridge in three sets. But things were completely different in the title bout. Energized by junior middle blocker Erin Herrmann, the SaberCats stormed to a 25-21 victory in the first set.
But back came Valor with a dominating 25-16 win in set No. 2 and seemed to be rolling. But Fossil Ridge would simply not go away.
The fifth set was a classic. The SaberCats held an 11-8 lead and seemed to be on the verge of a huge upset. But Valor won seven of the next eight points to win the championship.
Delaney Russell, the Eagles’ senior outside hitter, put it this way: “We go into every game and we think, ‘Serve and pass, heart and smart.’ It works for us.”
Asked about the pressure to repeat and complete a perfect season, Russell said; “We don’t think that way. We think about the things we can control and we give 100% effort.”
Fossil Ridge coach Natalie Burton, who led her team to a 25-5 record, saw her SaberCats peak at just the right time. It wasn’t quite enough.
“We started the season with Valor and we were so young and so new,” she said. “We only had four returning varsity players. Two of our three seniors have been out with injuries, so we knew we were young and going to have to figure it out.
“But we wanted to see the best at the beginning because we knew there was a chance we were going to be here at the end.”
And they were.
But Valor is formidable because it knows how to win and because it’s loaded with talent.
The Eagles, ranked 15th in the country in USA Today’s High School Sports Super 25, have four seniors committed to Division I college programs: Russell is headed to Montana; outside hitter Brynn Shearn is going to Carnegie Mellon; middle blocker Grace Langer will attend West Virginia; and outside hitter Farrah Eike is going to the Naval Academy. Junior setter Chloe Elarton is also committed to SEC power Georgia.
The Eagles were also pushed to the limit in the semifinals against Legend, needing five sets (25-14, 22-25, 21-25, 25-17, 15-6) to advance to the title match. Valor lost just six sets all season, four of them to Legend, two of them to Fossil Ridge.
“We never got rattled,” said Langer. “We are such a close-knit team that we trust each other. We were so dedicated to doing this.”
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