Going into Thursday night’s volleyball match at Bel Air, Bohemia Manor’s players had no idea that the Bobcats had won 31 straight Upper Chesapeake Bay Athletic Conference matches.
The Eagles only knew that they were underdogs, especially after losing a month ago to the Bobcats in four sets. However, they didn’t play like underdogs Thursday.
The No. 15 Eagles rallied behind the stellar net play of senior twins Rylee and Raegan Lenz to upset No. 7 Bel Air, 26-24, 15-25, 22-25, 25-18, 15-12.
“This win is so huge,” Rylee Lenz said. “Last year, they were the toughest team in our conference and it feels so good to take a win from them this year.”
Raegan Lenz said, “It feels good for us to break their record. We came in as the underdog and I think this win showed that we shouldn’t be the underdog and that we can compete with high level teams.”
The two middle blockers provided much of the offense for the Eagles and their intimidating presence at the net altered Bel Air’s attack especially late in the match. Six-foot Rylee finished with 13 kills, six blocks and 19 digs while 6-1 Raegan, who missed last season with an injury, had 10 kills, one block and 11 digs.
“These two know where to put the ball,” said Eagles senior libero Julia Holmes. “They can hit the ball over the block and blocking, they can follow any ball. They can single block outside, right side or in the middle, which is insane and doesn’t usually happen, but we have our other blocker pull off because they can block as well just on their own.”
The Eagles (8-2, 6-2 UCBAC Chesapeake Division) started the season 1-2 with losses to Bel Air and Fallston, but they have since avenged both and won their last seven matches.
Thursday night, the Eagles played well in the first game but fell apart a bit in the second as the Bobcats had 10 kills on their first 19 points. Bel Air took the early lead again in the third set, before the Eagles finally tied it at 20. The Bobcats closed out the set with a block from Jayden Bellers and a set-point kill from Lexi Bell.
Bohemia Manor coach Sabrina Larmer said her team made a few adjustments after the second set.
“Bel Air started picking apart the holes in our defense and in that second set, we weren’t picking it up,” Larmer said. “We weren’t making the adjustment to their smart offense. They weren’t necessarily swinging very tough on us, but they were finding the holes. I think when we started to adjust that, we started to adjust where we were putting the ball, making smarter choices, making smarter sets. I think that kind of brought us back into the match.”
Bohemia Manor led the entire fourth set and also forced the Bobcats to play catch up in the fifth.
The fifth set was tied five times before the Eagles scored five straight points for a 13-8 lead on kills from Raegan Lenz and Kylee Bergman, an ace from Rylee Lenz and two Bel Air hitting errors.
The Bobcats rallied to within 13-12 on strong serving from Kayden Hardenbrook, who just returned from an injury, and kills from Megan Cassaday and Anaiah Lewis, but errors that have plagued the Bobcats at times all season — a long serve and a hitting error — gave the Eagles their final two points and the match.
“When I look at the stats, we always have considerably more kills than the other team,” said Bel Air coach Dave Simon, whose stats showed a 59-37 kill advantage for the Bobcats. “But when I look at the errors, our serving errors and our hitting errors, they can almost add up to a whole set. We continue to make bad choices at times. I like that we’re aggressive and I hope that pays off in the long run. I feel if we can clean that up and maybe Hardenbrook coming back will help us close that gap a little bit.”
Kane led the Bobcats (7-1 overall and conference) with 19 kills while Betters and Lewis had 10 each. Kane also had 25 assists and Tia Pegler had 31.
In addition to the Lenz twins’ contribution, the Eagles got a stellar passing game and 18 digs from Holmes as well as 28 assists from setter Hannah Beck.
The Eagles’ win also ended Bel Air’s 27-match home win streak and Simon said the end of the streaks might be a blessing in disguise.
“We did feel like it was adding a little bit of stress unnecessarily and so maybe that will help us not to make as many errors or just play a little more relaxed and, ‘Okay, let’s start something new here.’ We told them it’s just a game and they had an off night and the other team played well,” said Simon, whose team reached the Class 3A state semifinals the past three seasons.
For the Eagles, whose school is much smaller than Bel Air, the improvement through the season, Larmer said, will only help going into the Class 1A playoffs where they were also state semifinalists last fall.
“This is a 3A team and state semifinalist and to be able to compete against players like Bel Air has on the court, for us it’s great,” she said. “It’s a great measure, because we’re going to go into 1A playoffs with the experience of facing adversity, overcoming the loss of a set or two into November and that’s what we’re going for.”
