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By Jay Spivey

For the Clemmons Courier

The West Forsyth girls sand volleyball team was hoping to spike the competition two weekends ago in the N.C. High School Sand Volleyball Association state championship at Southern Sand Volleyball in Apex. 

West Forsyth did just what it set out to accomplish and won the state championship by defeating Reagan 2-1.

“I know we have very good volleyball players, and I think a strength for our conference and our teams in general is that we had beach volleyball for a while and we have the courts on-campus,” said Coach Lauren Gillon, who is the girls indoor volleyball coach and sand volleyball coach for the Titans. “So, we have had time for it to kind of have some traction and kids really understand the game because it’s a lot of similar skills as indoor, but the game itself and kinds of strategies are very different.” 

There are seven conferences set up for sand volleyball across the state, which are, in essence, regions. West Forsyth is in the Triad Area, which consists of playing schools in the Winston-Salem, Greensboro, High Point and Burlington areas.  

Each team that competes is composed of three pairs. According to Gillon, eight teams competed in Apex that were broken down into two pools of four teams. In pool play, the West Forsyth girls played in the same pool as Topsail, Greenville Rose and Camden. West Forsyth finished 2-1 in the pool after notching wins against Camden and Rose, however it lost to Topsail.

West Forsyth finished in the top two of its pool and moved to the knockout phase of the tournament, playing Greenville Conley in the semifinals. West Forsyth defeated Conley, which set up a matchup against rival Reagan for the state championship. Reagan was coming off a win against Topsail.

“The girls competed really hard,” Gillon said. “That’s what’s cool about high school sports is that rivalry just drives teams up or down a lot of the time and our girls were ready to do it.” 

Once a match starts there are three matches going on simultaneously with the three pairs teams from each school. For the Titans, the pairs were sophomores Hadley Lichty and Aurora Rosa, which is the No. 1 seeded team, the No. 2 team of sophomore Ella Lamoureux and junior Anna Hege and the No. 3 team of senior Chloe Randell and Avalon Rayne.  Lichty and Rosa finished runners-up in the individual pairs competition the night before the team championship to the pairs team from Topsail.

Gillon said that Lichty and Rosa won quickly to give West Forsyth a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three match, but Lamoureux and Hege lost to even the match at 1-1. 

“Reagan’s twos pair, they were really good,” Hege said. “One’s a year-round beach player and the other one, she got a lot better over the season.” 

Randell and Rayne won their match in three sets to give West Forsyth the state championship. 

Even though Reagan was a familiar foe, each team had to evolve as the match progressed. 

“Watching them warm up is definitely a big part of it because you get to see how they interact with each other,” Lamoureux said.  

Lichty said she and Rosa started playing volleyball together when they were 11 years old. 

“Avalon and Hadley are a very strong pair,” Randell said. “They’ve been playing together for a very long time.”

Like many championships it came down to the end. According to Randell, their team lost the first set and won the second set, setting up a winner-take-all third set.

Despite clinching the match, it was also bittersweet. 

“It was a really close game,” Rayne said. “That’s probably the reason why we’re close as a group and why we have so much fun together is because it was such a positive memory. And we’re just close on that. That’s another reason why it’s so hard to see Chloe go. I won with her and like now I have to find a new partner. It’s going to be so sad.” 

All of the girls said beating Reagan for the state championship made it more special. 

“It was very fantastic to see (them lose),” Hege said.  

According to the team, they stormed the court after defeating Reagan for the championship. 

“I was really proud of them because we have one senior, two sophomores, two juniors,” Gillon said. “They were ready to do it. And they were competing and doing their thing. And that’s what’s different about beach volleyball is there can be some coaching when they switch sides, and you can obviously coach them when they take a timeout, but outside of that it’s really on the players and they really only have each other.” 

Not only did the Titans win the sand-volleyball championship, but the indoor team finished 27-9 overall last fall. 

“That’s what I think is the coolest about the sport, and this group of six also, is they all played on the varsity indoor team this past year,” Gillon said. “It was really cool to see them competing within their own net, on their own court, but also bonding and competing for each other. I get really proud and I’m excited about the culture of volleyball at the school.” 

In addition to Lichty and Rosa finishing runners-up in the girls pairs competition, the Titans also had a boys team with Liam Shugart and Jackson Arnaez, which also finished runners-up.

Although Topsail is over 200 miles away from the campus of West Forsyth, the pairs team from the school was familiar to Lichty and Rosa. Despite reaching the final, Lichty and Rosa were swept. 

According to Gillon, one of Topsail’s championship pairs team has committed to play at LSU for beach volleyball, and the other is also committed to play beach volleyball at South Carolina. 

“We also played them last year, too,” Rosa said. “We were just testing them out because they’re both really good players, all-around. So, we were just trying to see which one was weaker.” 

It’s even more important to communicate with two players in sand volleyball compared to six players in indoor volleyball. 

“There’s strategy and communication, being on the same page and understanding each other are all really important aspects of playing 2v2,” Gillon said. “So, I think that’s one thing that makes Hadley and Aurora so strong. They were a strong pair last year, and were state runner-up last year, also.” 

Despite the loss, they still took solace. 

“I think from the experience, just savoring the experience with each other,” Rosa said. “We only have one more year with this, so just enjoying the moment and taking in what we did, our skills, what we were good at and take it to next season.” 

Although the sport isn’t sanctioned by the NCHSAA like most of the rest of the sports played at West Forsyth, the team won a state championship, which has only added to the success of what has been an outstanding season this spring for West Forsyth athletics. 

“West is a sports school,” Rayne said. “I feel like for decades, it’s kind of expected of us for the sports teams to be good. We have to be good.”