NVC 16s team goes 6-1 in final event
Published 9:40 pm Thursday, May 7, 2015
![Isle of Wight Academy’s Ashley Petroski, in midair, goes on the offensive as a member of the Nansemond Volleyball Club 16s team during the recent Revolutionary Rumble in Williamsburg. The NVC 16s team finished its season with a record of 38-4. (Photo submitted by Robyn Ross )](https://www.suffolknewsherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2015/05/IMG_4270.jpg)
Isle of Wight Academy’s Ashley Petroski, in midair, goes on the offensive as a member of the Nansemond Volleyball Club 16s team during the recent Revolutionary Rumble in Williamsburg. The NVC 16s team finished its season with a record of 38-4. (Photo submitted by Robyn Ross )
The Nansemond Volleyball Club’s team of girls playing at the 16-year-old level did not close out its remarkable run with a tournament win, but its coach, Robyn Ross, was still quite pleased with what it did accomplish.
Playing against U-Turn Sports Performance Academy Volleyball 16’s Gray in the semifinals of the recent Revolutionary Rumble in Williamsburg, the NVC 16s team of largely Suffolk girls climbed back from a 9-14 deficit in the third and deciding set to tie things at 14.
The winning point by the USPAV 16’s Gray team proved to be a judgment call, and some spectators said the official definitely made the wrong call.
But what was important to Ross was that she and her team — both small in size and small in number — had been talking all season about how to fight in matches that are hard and that feature bigger opponents.
“That’s exactly what they did in the last point of that last set,” she said. “To me, the season ended on a super-high note and on a really great match that could have gone a different way with a different ref.”
The NVC 16s team went 6-1 at The Revolutionary Rumble, taking third place out of 42 teams.
“I think we did really well, and we were up against, I think, the hardest people that we have seen this season,” said Livi Bono, a star volleyball player from Nansemond-Suffolk Academy.
Ross said, “Livi had her best tournament all the way around. She, I think, has led in kills for every tournament that we’ve played in, but this time, she also led the team in points on serve.”
Bono recorded 51 kills, 24 digs, 43 points on serve and nine aces.
“I didn’t think I was doing that good,” Bono said, after hearing the numbers. “That’s crazy.”
Praising another NSA star, Ross said, “Lindsay (Knierbein) produced offensively more than she ever has.”
Knierbein ended up with 27 kills, 35 digs, 30 points on serve and five aces.
Nansemond-Suffolk Academy’s Logan Harrell and Greenbrier Christian Academy’s Lexi Ackerman led the defense with 41 and 39 digs, respectively.
Harrell also brought her typically strong service game, with 39 points on serve and 10 aces.
Nicole Wright of NSA had 137 assists.
The NVC 16s team, which features only seven players, none taller than 5 feet 8 inches, finished its season with a 38-4 record, the best any team at any age level from the Nansemond Volleyball Club has had during its five-year history.
The “little team that could” also became the first NVC squad to win the Monument City Classic and the first to win four tournaments in a single season.
“Since we didn’t have the size, we had to focus on being great at serving and great at defense and passing, and so that’s what they did,” Ross said.