SACCO: Experience ruled the day

RICHMOND

Experience, in sports, is spoken of like it’s some sort of Holy Grail. Manna, if you will, raining down from the top of the gym to feed those who have been there and done that before.

Some of us agree.

Others laugh.

Talent, after all, should trump experience. And if you have yourself a pretty darn good volleyball team, which Wilson Memorial had this season, it’s going to take a pretty darn better team to send you packing early.

But on Friday, in the Group A semifinal, experience, and the Hornets’ lack thereof, proved to be the difference maker in what was shaping up to be a dream-come-true season for coach Kim Claytor’s bunch.

Strasburg, though having lost seven seniors from last year’s Group A championship team, had been under the bright lights of the Siegel Center before. Sure, only three current members of the Rams even sniffed the court last season, but at least they had been here. Sitting on the bench watching the current crop of starters face the pressure and wholly different sight lines does, indeed help.

It showed right from the get go.

The Rams jumped out to a 7-2 lead off four quick aces, a pair of kills and a Wilson Memorial error. All the Hornets could muster during that run was a pair of floor rumblers from star Kala Guy.

The Rams knew how to keep their emotions in check in this cavernous building. The Hornets, used to playing only in bandbox gyms, could not.

“[We were] trying to do too much and wanted it so bad,” Claytor said. “It’s not like [Strasburg] hit the ball any harder, we made mistakes.”

Things would have been completely different if the Hornets had been able to get over that Rappahannock hump a few years earlier. Imagine, if you will Fishersville, a group of savvy veteran volleyball players with one year in the big dance under their belts.

Imagine Guy, Christine Coffield, Tiffany Crosby and the others with one year of state experience as they entered the Siegel Center last night.

Think about them knowing what to expect. Knowing that it’s a little big brighter, a little big bigger and there’s no way in heck you’re going to hit the ceiling.

Strasburg already knew what to expect. The Hornets never saw it coming.

“It was mainly nerves,” said junior Noël Bartley. “We couldn’t find the holes.”

If the Hornets could have found the Siegel Center a year or two earlier, those holes would have looked like train tunnels.

Bartley returns next year with Danielle Dove, Trishia Bruce and whoever Claytor and company deem good enough to make the that JV jump to varsity in Wilson’s first year in Group AA.

We’ll have to wait to see if the Hornets can repeat the magic.

When and if it comes, the Siegel Center won’t be as blinding.