Tunstall crushes Christiansburg in Region IV volleyball quarterfinals

DRY FORK — Tunstall responded to its first loss of the season by dismissing Christiansburg in three sets, 25-16, 25-15 and 25-21, in a Region IV volleyball quarterfinal Tuesday night in Dry Fork.

The Trojans (22-1), fueled by an intensely raucous crowd of boys that bellowed organized chants and featured at least one instance of crowd surfing, rebounded from a stunning five-set loss to Patrick County in the Piedmont District tournament championship game Saturday by pouncing on the overmatched Blue Demons (13-11) from the start. Tunstall cruised to easy victories in the first two sets and didn’t trail until early in the decisive third set, when the Trojans rallied from six points down to reach the Region IV semifinals for the third time in four seasons.

Tunstall faces Hidden Valley, a 25-15, 25-20, 25-18 winner against Carroll County, at 7 p.m. Thursday at Hidden Valley for a berth in the Region IV finals and the Group AA state tournament. Hidden Valley (19-3) ended Tunstall’s season each of the last two years, dispatching the Trojans in three sets in the Region IV quarterfinals last season in Dry Fork, when the Titans trailed the third set 19-7 but finished on an 18-3 run.

Hidden Valley fell to Loudoun County 31-29, 25-21, 29-27 in the Group AA state title game last season.

“I started talking about Hidden Valley this summer, at the Trojans camp, and I wanted us to have another chance at them. And we’ve got another chance,” longtime Tunstall coach Jackie Hardy said. “If we have this energy and this positive attitude, I think we’ll be OK.”

Freshman Libero Kelsey Van Asch helped stake the Trojans to a 6-0 lead with her serving in the first set. She also closed the third set with four consecutive service points, including an ace to clinch the win, finishing with 17 points, four aces and eight digs.

Kelsey Smith dominated Christiansburg in all three sets, racking up 15 kills, four blocks, eight points and two aces. Megan Dillion added five points, six digs and five kills. Catt Kefauver chipped in with five kills and two blocks, Taylor Dix had four points and 15 assists and Kendall Bowling provided several outstanding defense plays in the victory.

“When we lost Saturday, that put in our minds that we could actually lose, even though we hadn’t in 21 games,” Smith said, “but tonight we didn’t want to lose so we kept pushing really hard to keep (our momentum) up.”

Christiansburg sapped that momentum after being hammered in the first two sets. The Demons took their first lead of the contest by capturing the first point of the third set and forged an 11-5 advantage as Tunstall called its first timeout of the night.

“We just lost the momentum,” Van Asch said, “but we decided that we wanted to get out of here in three… and that’s just what we did.”

Kefauver halted a 5-0 Christiansburg run with an emphatic kill and the Trojans slowly picked away at the visitors’ advantage until Morgan Distad knotted the game at 19-19 with a gentle tap over the net.

Tunstall scored the final five points of the set, rallying from a 21-20 deficit, to secure the victory.

“I think a little bit of it may be inexperience at this level,” Christiansburg coach Brian Smith said. “We haven’t been to a regional match before and I think they might have been a little nervous. But Tunstall did a good job of executing the things that they needed to to get their effective hitters hitting, and we weren’t really able to counter that.”

The Trojans grabbed their first lead of the third set at 22-21 when the Demons proved unable to return a Van Asch serve. Consecutive kills by Smith and a Van Asch ace ended the contest, setting up Tunstall with another regional contest against Hidden Valley.

“We have been waiting for a road trip. We’re so excited, the whole team is,” Tunstall senior Amanda Gibson said. “We’re really looking forward to it. We’ve trained and we’re practicing and we’re going to be ready for it.”