This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Sports

Century High School Captures First State Volleyball Title

The Knights win the state title in their first visit to the finals.

downed defending Class 2A volleyball champion Fallston 3-1 to win the 2011 title at the University of Maryland Saturday.

The Knights made the most of their first trip to the finals handing the Cougars their third loss of the season. The Knights ended the season with a 18-1 mark.

"It’s kind of surreal right now. It’s amazing," said a choked up Century coach Becky Groves after the game at the press conference. "Some of these girls I’ve coached for four years and I am just so proud of them."

Find out what's happening in Eldersburgwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Fallston won the first game 25-23 before Century came back to take the next three games 25-23, 25-21 and 25-21. The Knights were down 16-8 in the second game before coming back for the win.

Century only dropped seven games during the season.

Find out what's happening in Eldersburgwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"Not the turnout we hoped for, but we played great volleyball. Give Century a lot of credit, they came today ready to play. It was definitely an evenly match game and both teams played their hearts out," said Fallston head coach Alison Winaker.

The teams were equal in kills as Century had 50 and Fallston 50, but the difference was in digs as the Knights had 74 to 58 for the Cougars.

"They hit the hardest we have seen this year," said Fallston’s Rachael Holehouse, who had 32 kills in the match.

Abby Thrift topped Century with 19 kills and teammate Morgan Thomas had 16. Steph Whealton had 19 digs, Thomas 14 while Hailey Thrift had 13, Anna Collins 12 and Abby Thrift 11.

"I think I was just pumped It’s my senior year and we made it to the state finals, which is a huge deal. We knew Fallston was going to be a good team, so we needed to play well," said Thomas

"We really worked hard to get were we are today. It wasn’t just one year of work. It was all four years combined that brought us to be state champions," said Groves who started as junior varsity coach before guiding the varsity for three years. She has a 47-6 record for the three years.

Asked how it felt to win Century’s first volleyball title, Groves said, "It’s incredible. This is the first title I have won as a head coach and I thought it was going to be in lacrosse, which I know a lot more about. It’s a great feeling. I know I was blessed to have as much talent as I do on the team.  But you still got to get there. You still got to play. I am just so proud of them because they did it."

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Eldersburg