One had the feeling while watching the college-like play between Centennial (17-1) and River Hill (16-1) Friday night in the 3A East regional championship match that whoever won was going to do some damage in next week’s state tournament.

River Hill won, 25-27, 25-17, 25-15, 28-26, to advance to Tuesday’s 3A state semifinal at Ritchie Coliseum in College Park.

“Howard County volleyball is just outstanding. We are truly blessed to play in a place where we have all of this to help us get ready to keep moving on,” said River Hill coach Sybil Modispacher. “We’re proud to be a part of this county.”

For the last two years, 14-time state champion Centennial has ruled this county. The last time the Eagles lost to a county opponent was in the 2007 3A East regional quarterfinal, to eventual undefeated county and state champion Reservoir. Centennial won the state title each of the three years before that. Friday night’s loss ended a streak of 37 straight wins, excluding a best-of-three loss to Mount de Sales in this year’s Bull Dog Tournament.

“I’m speechless. It feels unreal. You really hope for it and you dream and you think about it, and you’re like, ‘all right, this is the big game,’ (and then) it comes down to that, 28-26,” said River Hill junior Sarah Okey, who led all players with 17 kills.



Centennial defeated River Hill, 25-23, 25-18, 26-24, in early October.

“Mentally we’ve come a long way (since then),” said River Hill libero Laura Whitney, the team’s defensive anchor. “Last time we played Centennial we started off strong in every game, but then we couldn’t finish.”

History repeated itself in Game 1. The Hawks stormed out of the gate, claiming leads of 16-11 and 19-12, but then let it slip away. Facing game point at 24-20, Centennial setter Kaitlyn Brehm stepped to the service line and recorded five straight points, on a May Yang point block, an ace, two kills by Sam Brostrom and one by Liz Brown.



Brostrom led the Eagles with 13 kills and 21 digs, while Brown had 10 kills.

Megan Rosburg ended the Eagle run with a kill, but then another Brown kill brought it back, and Centennial took a 1-0 lead after a River Hill error.

After such a deflating loss, River Hill could have come out flat in Game 2.

“That was definitely a possibility,” Whitney said. “But we just came together and we said, ‘we know what happened last time we played them … you know what? New start, blank slate.’ “

In Game 2, River Hill jumped to another big lead of 16-6, and this time, didn’t let up.

“When we came together to start the second set I wasn’t worried at all because they said … 'we’re going to do this' … as opposed to going, 'maybe we can,' ” Modispacher said.

Game 3 was more of the same as the Hawks took a 21-10 lead, and the Eagles struggled to build rallies. The home team had only five kills, and didn’t score three points in a row until Brostrom served three consecutive aces to make the score 22-14.



“We weren’t getting a lot of kills because they were digging us,” Centennial coach Larry Schofield said. “We tried to mix up our hits, but the girls like to just bring the thunder, and that’s not what was needed. We needed a couple of rain drops, dink them in, or turn it down the line.”

River Hill used its experience with Centennial at the Bulldog Tournament (the Hawks placed second, but did not play Centennial) and in their regular-season match as preparation.

“We knew a lot of the shots they were going to take, so we really practiced all week. We really worked on trying to cover (and on) trying to get everything up,” Whitney said.

The Eagles finally started to show some trademark fight in Game 4, taking the lead several times, but it was still not enough. River Hill never let the Eagles get more than two points out of reach and eventually took a 26-25 lead on a Rosburg kill.

Centennial tied the game and got the ball back on a River Hill service error, but promptly returned it on a service error of its own, which allowed Rosburg to put it away with her 15th kill of the match.



River Hill senior Sarah Gordon — one of only three on the team along with Whitney and Nikki Piper (six kills) — contributed 13 kills.



Service errors were the bain of Centennial’s evening. The Eagles, typically known for their strong serving, made 15 service errors on Friday, including five in the deciding game, constantly derailing rallies and giving the Hawks the upper hand.

“That was it, we couldn’t buy a serve. And when we did get some good serves, we were able to put them out of system and run some points,” Schofield said.

While River Hill looks forward to playing Towson (17-0) Tuesday night in the 3A state semifinal at the University of Maryland's Ritchie Coliseum, Centennial is left looking ahead to 2010. The Eagles lose only three starters to graduation.

“I think (the juniors) are really going to learn from this, because I never had this experience of wanting to win so bad,” said senior Michelle Klima (11 kills, three blocks), who was part of a team that went 20-0 while dropping only two sets as a junior. “They’re really going to push it next year. They know what they have to do, they realize what went wrong here, and it’s just going to make us that much better next year.”

"Seventeen-and-one is a pretty good season. You hate to think it's a losing season, but when it ends early like this, in this program it tends to have that impact," Schofield said.

For more video from this match, go to youtube.com/user/ExploreHoward

This story has been updated.

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