Net Gains: The 2010 Lady Wolverines Volleyball Team Wins the Program's First Region and Upper-State Titles
Part 3 of The Woodruff Times Wolverine history series looks back at the 2010 volleyball team, which won Woodruff's first region championship and reached the state final.
The Woodruff Times published Part 3 of its 12-part Wolverine history series, "Net Gains," on October 1, 2020. Here is our summary.
The story looks back at the 2010 Woodruff High volleyball team. The program dates to the mid-1980s but had never won a region title in more than twenty years. That season the Lady Wolverines lost only once in non-conference play, then dropped a five-set match to conference favorite Broome, and a road win at Mid-Carolina is remembered by players as the point where the team hit its stride.
On the final day of the regular season Woodruff beat Broome in five sets, coming back in the fifth, then won a tiebreaker match in four sets the next night at Dorman High School to claim the first region championship in program history.
In the playoffs Woodruff beat Pendleton, then came back from first-game losses to win three straight sets against both Gilbert and Liberty, reaching the upper-state final for the first time. There the Lady Wolverines beat Keenan, the state's No. 2-ranked team, in five sets before close to 1,000 fans in Woodruff's own gym. The following week Woodruff lost the state final to Bishop England, then in the midst of a run of state titles that reached 18 before ending in 2018.
The Times notes that the upper-state championship photo still hangs in the gym, that Woodruff has made the playoffs every season since, and that a state title is still the program's unfinished goal. Players on the 2010 team are not named here; the full article names them and includes photos.
This is our own summary; the full reporting is at The Woodruff Times (link below).