Preps Plus

Three different buses and four different teams will depart Albemarle High bound for destinations as varied as Riverbend High, North Stafford High and Wilomere Park. All are carrying squads who could be bringing home Commonwealth district titles or at least district playoff victories.
But that’s a typical fall Thursday for the Patriots.
Because of its Group AAA status and Commonwealth District affiliation, Albemarle usually is forced to travel an hour or more for district playoffs and meets to Stafford or Fredericksburg. Today is no different as the Patriots send a bunch of teams east — strong girls and boys cross-country squads head to Wilomere Park to hunt for a pair of district titles, the volleyball squad faces Colonial Forge in a regular season district playoff at Riverbend and Albemarle’s seventh-seeded field hockey team takes on second-seeded North Stafford in a district quarterfinal elimination game.
Albemarle’s volleyball team has a particularly tough chalenge, as they face the Eagles in a rubber match after the two squads worked over the rest of the Commonwealth while splitting their head-to-head matches. There’s a lot on the line at Riverbend as the winner will pick up the regional playoff berth as well as home-court advantage in the Commonwealth tournament.
Albemarle had a chance to sew that up with a victory against Colonial Forge back on Sept. 30, but an intense crowd and playing on the road seemed to impact the Patriots. That’ll likely be an issue again tonight at Riverbend as the Eagles’ fan base has to travel just 30 minutes to the neutral site versus Albemarle’s trip of more than an hour.
“We’re not strangers to play on the road,“ said Albemarle coach Mark Ragland. “It’s about deciding not to let circumstances dictate how you perform. At this point we have to look at it as an opportunity.“
Albemarle will be without the services of senior right-side hitter Emily Strauss who went down with an injury recently, so the Patriots will have to adjust against an equally talented Colonial Forge team.
Last year, Albemarle faced the same situation against the Eagles and dropped the contest at Orange in what Ragland has described as a flat effort. The Patriots will have to dig deep to get up for a match of this magnitude as they haven’t played many big-time matches lately, sweeping every team but Riverbend since the loss to Colonial Forge.
“We need to play our style of volleyball and if we do that, that’s all we can ask for,“ Ragland said.