BY RICHARD ALLAN
There are eight teams still playing Division V volleyball in the state and only one is a public school. Welcome to Fall River High. Tera Strickland delivered 20 service points, with three aces, to help Fall River advance out of the first round of state playoffs. The host team defeated Rincon Valley Christian of Santa Rosa in four games Tuesday night, 25-13, 13-25, 25-17, 26-24. “Oh my God it’s amazing, I can’t believe it,” said coach Kelly Freeland-Sloat. “There’s only eight teams left in the state in Division V. That’s so cool we’re one of them. They (RVC) were a really good team and if that’s our only win that would be awesome too. But we want to win again,” she added.

No. 4 Fall River will now host No. 8 St. Francis of Watsonville because they upset top seeded Turlock Christian. However, Freeland-Sloat does not put too much stock in the seedings at this level. “The eighth seed doesn’t mean anything. We’re all ones and twos,” she said. Fall River cruised to victory with relative ease against Rincon Valley Christain. The first two games were more competitive than the 25-13 score would indicate. Both teams had a knack for getting to the ball and often times took several volleys to decide the point. However, in game two Fall River uncharacteristically had troubles getting their serves over the net. Freeland-Sloat said it was a focus issue, which they recovered from. The Eagles fought hard to stave off elimination in game four, but Kayleen Drollinger came up with a couple of ace serves to seal the 26-24 victory. Drollinger finished with 13 kills, two aces and three blocks. The Eagles were the harder hitting team and Fall River had troubles with their quick sets. However, the Lady Bulldogs defense always seemed to come up with the block when they needed one. “We couldn’t stop the back quick,” Freeland-Sloat said. Their (the Eagles) offense was really good. They hit the ball harder than us and their defense was good, but not as good as ours.” The coach believes all the teams in the state tournament are big hitting teams and their defensive ability will be at a premium in the game(s) to come.