Liz Twilley and Oakdale were too much for the Tigers. The Rising Sun volleyball team was swept by Oakdale in the state finals Monday night, November 17, at Ritchie Coliseum. The Bears beat the Tigers 25-17, 25-10, 25-18. It was the first loss of the season for Rising Sun (23-1) The Tigers were seeking the third state title in program history, having won in 2006 and 2007. Rising Sun has now dropped its last two state final appearances including a loss in 2008. Twilley, who will attend the University of Maryland next fall, collected 20 kills. It was far from a one-person show as Abbie Harry had 13 kills and Oakdale outplayed the Tigers in every facet of the game. It's the first state volleyball title for Oakdale which has been in existence for five years. Lacey Swartout led Rising Sun with 11 kills and Breanne Haley added eight. Poor serve receiving enabled the Bears to pull away in the first two sets. Rising Sun's bright spot came in the third set. Maddy Eckerd served three straight aces, the first two dribbling over off the top of the net, to give the Tigers an 11-9 edge. But Oakdale battled back quickly to regain command. "My hat's off to Oakdale," Rising Sun coach Rich Wilson said. "Great team. Lot of speed. Awful lot of speed which is probably what surprised me the most. They had a great serve which also was a little bit surprising from what little I saw from them (in their state semifinal match). Kind of took us out of our serve receive and everything else. Just a great team. There's very few who could match up with number 6 (Twilley). Great player. Probably what surprised me the most is how fast she is off her feet. So pretty much anything that is set out her way she can go up and take a swing at. I've known (Oakdale coach) Jim (Dorsch) a long time so it's not surprising he coaches a great team…Just a good, good, steady, solid team all the way, all six, all seven players. It was tough to find anybody to pick on. We knew they'd have a decent block although our hitters handled that pretty well. But they pretty much took away our middles and our right side so we were left kind of one-dimensional." The Tigers tried to contain Twilley, but did not have much success. "The only thing you can do with a player like that is try to slow her down," said Wilson. "So we went from our standard rotation two to rotation five to put Anna (Prodoehl) on her for a couple rotations to give her the biggest block we could get. And, frankly, we were hoping to break down their passing enough to negate her hit at the net, push her back off the net more, get a little bit of a softer swing and a higher ball to try and dig. But our serving never really materialized like it has all season. So that was it in a nutshell. A player like that you can't really neutralize. You can hope to slow her down and then hope that by slowing her down the other players on the team start to press a little bit. It never happened. Just a good player (and) and a good team. That's the way I look at it. Just a better team at this point and time." Oakdale, located in Ijamsville, near Frederick, entered its first state tournament having faced some of the state's best teams. Rising Sun was never tested until the final, breezing through a second straight undefeated regular season. The Tigers did not drop a set until the region final match against North Caroline. "I've been harping on this over the years with our conference and the way they force us to do a home-and-home (with each divisional foe)," said Wilson. "We play within our conference. We play within the east region which is not the strongest volleyball region in the state. So we don't face great competition like this. If you want to be a great team, you've got to face great competition. And we're a good team. Obviously. We ran the regular season without really breaking a sweat. But it doesn't prepare you for matches like this. And coming out of the west region with all the great teams in the west region they play a really tough schedule so they're battle-tested. They play in the region finals and they're battle-tested and ready to go. I've been harping on this for years. Until the conference breaks down and allows us to schedule tougher matches this is the way its going to be in the east region. That's my feeling and they probably are not going to like it a whole lot. But it's no surprise, either. You want to be a great team, you have to play great teams. As far as I'm concerned no team should ever go undefeated because that means you're not playing a tough enough schedule. So maybe next year we'll pick up a couple more teams, who knows." The future remains bright for Rising Sun. The Tigers lose three seniors who were each contributors – Erin Harkey, starting right side hitter Prodoehl, and libero Marie Hyman. But Rising Sun returns a strong nucleus including hitters Swartout and Haley, setter Sarah Williams, and middles Eckerd and Mackenzie Blevins.
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