BAY VILLAGE, Ohio -- Trailing two games to one in the match and nine points to three in set No. 4, the Pirates looked to be headed toward a setback in their rivalry tussle with the Rockets. Playing at home and with the momentum of a big 25-21 win in the third game, Bay looked to be playing out the final points of a hard-fought 3-1 victory. The Rockets' 9-3 lead in the fourth included taking eight of the previous 10 points and, at one point, five in a row.

Then sophomore hitter Madie Shoaf connected on a kill for Rocky River. The Shoaf point would lead first to a trickle and then to a torrent, as River flooded the court with play after play -- up front and on defense -- in ticking away at the Bay edge. At the home of the Rockets, a countdown was on: the Pirates whittled their deficit to four points. Then three. Two. One. Back to a level fourth game when the score hit 16-16.

And Rocky River would overtake Bay, win that fourth set and eventually close out a tremendous 3-2 victory in their Tuesday-evening contest against the Rockets.

The Pirates (10-6, 9-5 Great Lakes Conference) earned the conference road win with the winning digits scrambled thusly: 16-25, 25-15, 21-25, 25-22, 15-8. The victory marks River's seventh in its last nine matches and it closes out a two-match season sweep of the Rockets. (The Pirates defeated Bay, 3-1, in Rocky River on Sept. 8.)

Tuesday's game-4 comeback was keyed by the play of Shoaf, junior Taylor Spies, and freshman Samantha Young. That trio was in on a slew of big blocks, kills, and digs in a game that was eventually knotted at 16-16, 17-17, and 22-22, before the Maroon & White were able to close it out.

In the fifth game, a Shoaf kill on the 15th point lifted River to a 9-6 lead. The Pirates gave one back on a dig error on the next point. After that, Bay would score just one more point the rest of the way. Junior Paige Waite made her 16th kill on the night a big one. Waite found hardwood with an authoritative swat to end the match. Her final point would mark Rocky River's 102nd in a marathon night that saw a combined 187 points from the two longtime rivals.

The Pirates hit .214 on 187 attempts on the attack. Waite and Shoaf (12 kills) were joined by Young (19) and sophomore Clare Duffy (14) in cranking out River's front-court production. Young's 3.8 kills per set marked her single-match best of the season. The freshman has come on for 35 kills over the team's last two matches.

Duffy (27) and Spies (17) excavated their way to a combined 44 digs on the night. Seniors Emma Liszeski and Emily Slyman added 11 digs each. Slyman collected 59 assists on a busy night setting up the lion's share of River's near-200 hitting attempts. She has 102 assists over the Pirates' last two matches.

Slyman's good work aside, Tuesday's victory -- one snatched from the jaws of defeat -- boiled down to a team-wide assist not found on the stat sheet:

Hustle, with an assist from tenacity.



by Skip Snow