COLUMN: No time for a frustrated Battle

GATE CITY, Va.

All John Battle coach Gary Griffitts could do was look down at the court and shake his head.

“The girls got frustrated,” he said moments after watching his Trojans fall 3-0 to Gate City in the Clinch Mountain District finals. “We didn’t show up, that’s the bottom line.”

When you’re playing Gate City in volleyball, you need to get frustrated and lose focus just about as much as America needs another “Real Chance of Love” on VH1.

And after showing off a few flashes of greatness in the second game, the Trojans turned what should have been one exciting elimination ceremony into an exercise of how not to keep your wits about you.

But goodness gracious that second game.

After looking overmatched and undermanned in a 25-16 loss in Game 1, John Battle looked like world beaters in the second.

For a brief moment, gone were the frustrated looks that plagued them in the first and third games as the Blue Devils jumped around their gym with ease.

Gone were the mental gaffes.

Instead of falling into the net, it was Ashley Bryant poking over a tip to tie the game at 1. Kelsey Griffitts took over, pock-marking the gym floor with four straight kills instead of looking back at the defense and frowning as they called a serve out before it fell in without so much as tickling the end line.

The Trojans held a 10-8 lead off an Abbey Davis kill before Gate City locked it at 10, forcing Battle to dance with the Devils until a Brittney Simpson kill made it 21-17 in favor of Gate City and that old nemesis for the Trojans reared its ugly head.

Two late-game errors and an in-net call made it 24-18.

Game 3?

They’ll have to take a mulligan on that one, but Kelsey Griffitts slapping the floor after an Ashton Dougherty kill sent her to the cold hardwood told the whole story.

“The girls got frustrated,” said a sullen coach Griffitts, repeating an all too familiar refrain Thursday. “And you got to be able to overcome that and play. They didn’t do that tonight.”

Gate City coach Amy Reed, who knows a good volleyball team when she sees one, said there is a chance the two teams will face each other again in the Region D tournament and when, and if, that time comes “they’re going to know us that much better and we’ll have to play that much harder.”

And Battle will have to play that much smarter because there’s a trail of broken dreams that tend to be left in Gate City’s wake. And playing frustrated isn’t going to get anybody their chain in an elimination ceremony.

From here on out it just gets you, well, eliminated.