For the first time in eight years, Patriot Girl’s Volleyball secured the win in a match against the Battlefield Bobcats. On Oct. 5th, the girls faced off in a riveting five set match. The atmosphere was exhilarating, the crowd was alive, and the tensions were high. This long-standing rivalry has created a burning desire within every Pioneer sports team to put the formidable Cats to rest.
After a devastating 0-3 set loss to the rival team on Sept. 11th at “the Den,” what better night to return the favor than Patriot’s Senior Night. Senior players Lanie Goff (‘24), Mide Akinkugbe (‘24), Peyton Hutchens (‘24), Mia Gooch (‘24), and Lauren Katz (‘24) celebrated their last year being a part of the Patriot Volleyball program and ended the night as winners.
The Pioneers maintained a strong momentum and overtook the Bobcats in a five-set match winning 3-2. In the first set, Patriot kickstarted their game with a 27-25 win. Akinkugbe plays as a right-side hitter and blocker for the team and has been on varsity for the past two years. When asked how that first set win affected the momentum of the game she said, “I think it showed us that we were focused…The first set wasn’t the end, and it was still 0-0 in our minds definitely helped us pull out the future win.”
A team philosophy for the Patriot Girls’ Volleyball team is to “play as if you have everything to lose.” The girls played hard, but Battlefield was just as determined; “The School Out West” claimed the next two sets 25-17 and 25-19.
By then, the fear had set in. Red Nation filled the stands yelling words of encouragement, and parents, friends, and family cheered for the girls to get back that palpable energy from the first set. “At first, we were down just because our team is so young. The mental toughness has always kind of been a struggle for our team, but our coaches and our captains, especially, kind of reinforce that leadership role and that accountability that mistakes are going to happen, but it’s how you improve from that and how you move on,” said Akinkugbe.
It’s clear that this mentality is shared by the whole team as the girls fought through the next two sets and secured the win. The fourth set finished with a score of 25-13 which led to a high-stakes match in which Patriot won 15-13.
The team had a combined total of 43 kills with middle blocker Sydney Bennett (‘26) leading with 15 of her own. Right behind her was Soliel Rancourt (‘26), an outside hitter, sporting 14 kills. The two were named First Team all around for the Cedar Run district according to Insidenova.com.
The senior night win was followed by another against the Osbourn Park Yellow Jackets on Oct. 12th. Unfortunately, the two-game win streak was broken with a loss against the Freedom South Riding Eagles on Oct. 19th.
Despite the disappointing loss, on Oct. 23rd Patriot Girls’ volleyball faced off against the Gainesville Cardinals for the third-place spot in the Cedar Run District Championship. Former captain and Soliel’s older sister, Dryden Rancourt (‘23), came back from Richard Bland College to support her alma mater.
According to her, “the best part about playing a one-man team is that you only have to take down one man.” While the Cardinals put up a good fight, Rancourt had no doubt that the win would be ours.
The rest of their post-season is as promising as ever. Regional play begins on Tuesday, Oct. 31st against the Colgan Sharks, first place team in the Cardinal District Championship. Libero and captain, Lanie Goff (‘24), has extremely high hopes for her team. “I’m very excited to see what happens in the first round and then going from there… We play them every year so it’s going to be cool to play them a second time this year and see how much we can compete.”
Lanie has been on varsity since her sophomore year and has been a part of all the highs and lows of postseason play for the last three years. In their post-game debrief, Head Coach, Katie Moore said, “In 2019, we were third place in the district and eighth seed in regionals. Colgan was number one, and we knocked them out in three sets…They just didn’t know what was coming. We handled it…The nice thing about regionals is that you knock that other team out, and their season is done. You get to keep going.”
The win against Battlefield and placing third in Districts has lit a fire under the team. The curse is broken, and like Moore said, the other teams don’t know what’s coming.
