Tigers pounce on Harford Tech in 3-1 upset win, fall to Fallston in 2nd round

By Victor Hensley

BEL AIR, MD - Some teams are simply better when their backs are against the wall.

Add the Rising Sun volleyball team to that list.

In a win-or-go-home playoff match against the No. 1 Harford Tech Cobras (10-5) on the road last Monday, the Tigers (8-10) earned come-from-behind victories in back-to-back sets to secure the first-round upset win, 3-1, in the MPSSAA 2A East Region I semifinals. Rising Sun went on to fall to the No. 2 Fallston Cougars (12-6) for the third time this season in the regional finals, but the Tigers’ performance against the Cobras was a lesson in resilience, one that can act as a building block for any young program.

“The girls weren’t down (on themselves), they were fine, it was the coaching staff that was stressing,” said Logan Bowers, the Tigers’ head coach, with a laugh when asked about the nerve-wracking win over the Cobras. “They just struggled and got their way through it, they fought through it.”

For both teams, there wasn’t a single set out of the four that was an easy win.

Bowers said after the win that it wasn’t his team’s “best play,” but even when his players are off their game, their refusal to quit is admirable.

Aside from the opening set — which Rising Sun won, 25-19, after fending off a comeback attempt by Harford Tech — the Ti- gers were forced to claw from behind in nearly all of its set victories to pull off the stunning road upset.

Perhaps none more than the match’s final set, which saw the Cobras lead by as many as five points, 15-10.

However, Rising Sun fought back to tie it at 16 apiece after senior Kirstyn Jackson blocked a shot at the net that slapped against the Cobras’ turf.

Then, on the next point, Harford Tech failed to communicate, letting the ball land in between a pair of Cobras as the Tigers took a 17-16 lead, an advantage they’d hang on to for the remainder of the match.

It was a close one all the way down to the wire, but in the end, Rising Sun’s cast of stars — including sophomore Kendra Waters, who killed shot after shot all night — made plays when it counted most, staving off any sort of Cobras run to knock off the region’s top seed.

It may not have been a perfect finish, but a win’s a win.

“There’s just no quit in them,” Bowers said of his team. “They sacrifice their bodies. … They just keep battling, even when they’re having a bad night.”

Part of the Tigers’ early match struggles — including their 25-16 second-set loss — came from their inability to contain some of the Cobras’ hardest hitters, namely outside hitter Matilyn Royal.

Bowers said that he was unable to find a lot of film on Harford Tech, meaning he didn’t get the opportunity to see much from Royal until it was in person and a little too late.

“Other than our normal blocks, we were adjusting on the fly,” Bowers said, “because we didn’t really have a whole lot of intel ahead of time.”

The Tigers – ravaged by injury and illness in the latter part of the season, including a week in which they lost four players entering the playoffs – had plenty of unlikely heroes in the victory, including a few players brought up off of the program’s junior varsity squad. One player Bowers credited for her versatility was junior Annie Valetutti, who had switched positions in order to fill one of the Tigers’ many roster holes.

“The last two weeks have just been unreal with having to juggle the lineup,” Bowers said. “The girls, as a team, have all done great playing different positions. Annie Valetutti has stepped up as an outside hitter when my one girl broke her wrist and Annie has only ever played right side in her life, but she’s picked up the slack and done a decent job. … It’s been very challenging, but the girls just stepped up.”

A couple of days later, Rising Sun lost to Fallston in the second round as its season came to a screeching halt, a tough moment for a team so stacked with important senior leadership.

Though, the experience of taking out a formidable contender in the postseason — battling through injuries and absences in the process — is one just about every young player on the Tigers can learn from and improve upon.

And with Bowers being forced to bring up some of his freshmen and sophomores that otherwise haven’t seen varsity action, its created a strong foundation for the future of Rising

Sun volleyball.

“I tried to get some young freshmen in that I brought up off of J.V. to fill in,” Bowers said. “I’m real proud of the freshmen I brought up.”