BEACHSIDE - For a second straight season, the Middleburg High volleyball team's journey to repeat their 2023 Class 5A state title has passed in front of a stellar Beachside High team and has twice ended in front of the team as the Broncos fell 3-1 in their region 1-5A semifinal to the Barracudas on Saturday at Beachside High. 

"We struggled a little bit and, in a game like this, you can't make the mistakes we made," said Middleburg coach Meredith Forkum. "We wanted it, but they were the better team today." 

Middleburg finishes with a 17-11 season record and a fourth ranked spot in Class 5A. Beachside continues into the region final against Tallahassee Chiles, the top seed and defending Class 5A champion, who stopped the surging Ponte Vedra High Sharks in a 3-0 win in the opposite semifinal. 

 
In two other area region quarterfinals matches, Fleming Island lost to Ponte Vedra also in region 1-5A while Keystone Heights, in region 2-3A, lost to Montverde Academy. Fleming Island, Keystone Heights and St Johns Country Day School all lost in their district championship games, but still advanced into the region playoffs. 

Ponte Vedra defeated Beachside just a week ago for the district 4-5A title. 

"That was a matter of it being tough to be the same team three times in one season," said Beachside coach Austin Lanteigne. "This region is just that tough." 

Ironically, the past two seasons have been nearly identical with Beachside's journey to the region final, against top seed Chiles this year and last year, also having a finish in the region final. 

 
In the Broncos 2023 state champion season, Ridgeview knocked out Beachside in the region semifinal with Middleburg beating Ridgeview en route to their title in the region final. 

"In this region alone are a handful of the best teams in all of Florida with us, Ponte Vedra, Chiles, Middleburg, Fleming Island who, on any given day, could win big or lose big against each other," Lanteigne said. "We just had the better day today, but Middleburg has been the standard the last few years." 

Burkert's rise to the top of the list of great teams in northeast Florida comes after a first year where he couldn't even play in his own gym. 

"The gym here was not done in our first year and we had to play all of our games on the road," said Lanteigne, in his fourth season of the 4-year-old Beachside program.

 Beachside, now 26-3, and the number two ranked team in Class 5A behind Tallahassee Chiles, won with games of 25-17, 25-19 and a fourth game of 25-13. The Broncos muscled through a 25-22 third game win that was fueled by surging play from outside hitter Kate Lowery and blockers Allie Lowery and Kathryn White. 

In the first two games, behind a back and forth missile show over the net featuring Middleburg senior Camden Rahn and Beachside senior Adriana Jeanpierre (commit to Mississippi State) in a juxtaposition of two district styles of attack on opposite ends of the net; Rahn rising high above the net and firing straight down the floor while Jeanpierre, with a massive vertical leap, sent her blasts to far corners for a crowd-pleasing effect. 

In the first game, with the scores tied up to 16-16, Rahn and Lowery answered the body blows of Jeanpierre and teammate Ailanni Sellers. Sellers is a junior, already committed to the U.S. Naval Academy. 

 
"They are very good at moving the ball left to right very fast," Forkum said. "We were stretching to get two sets of hands in front of them, but they were ahead of us." 

Beachside surged at this point with a 9-1 point gap to take the game at 25-17 with the Broncos making a handful of unforced errors trying to respond to the Barracuda barrage over the net. 

In game two, a thunderous shot by Bronco senior Kathryn White got the game to 14-13 for Beachside with momentum shifting slightly to the Bronco lineup. 

White has been a surprise offensive weapon in the Broncos last three games with her blocking a staple of the Bronco defense. 

"She's a senior and one of the more versatile players in the area," Forkum said. "The seniors on this team did not want the season to end here." 

A bomb by Sellers got back to back strikes from Rahn to keep things tight, but Beachside again owned the final segment of the game with a 6-2 surge to a 22-17 lead with the Barracudas third hitter, Mollie VanDeusen, landing shots with White putting up an errant set to net the final point, 25-19. 

Game three saw Middleburg fall behind early at 9-5 with a VanDeusen ace and trades by Sellers and freshman Ariela Bostic pushing the Barracudas score, but, again Kate Lowery emerged with big hits to turn the momentum back to the Broncos with White executing a nifty kill shot with a big block on Beachside's Isabella Taveras Seda that shook the Bronco bench with the score going 11-10 for the Broncos. 

"I just challenged them to remember that we were the champions not too long ago," Forkum said. "We were making way too many mistakes to face their attacks. We had to be better." 

A block by Sellers on a Lowery shot was followed by a scoring blast from Beachside's Jayden Roberts snuck past the double block of White and Allie Lowery to give the Barracudas a 14-12 lead. 

A long serve by Rahn increased the Barracude lead to 15-13 with a Sellers tap over the net going to 16-13.

"We didn't want to let that game get away from us because we were playing our game," Forkum said. “We needed a spark.”

The spark, for Forkum, became backline defender Chloe Mcwatters who iced her first service for an ace to 16-16 to tense up the Beachside gym. 

Jeanpierre returned fire with a wicked shot over the net at Mcwatters that stunned the Bronco defender to put Beachside up 17-16 with a questionable Rahn hit into the net overturned and replayed, saving a point.

Allie Lowery rejected a Jeanpierre strike shot that bounded just above the net where Sellers dunked it for the point and a 19-16 lead. 

Allie Lowery followed the Sellers dunk with her own with Rahn blasting a point to 20-18.

Junior Maysie Bader came alive and ripped two scoring shots to a 20-20 tie as the Broncos saw an opportunity to steal a game. 

Kate Lowery was again the pivotal hit twice this time with two smashed to a 23-22 Bronco lead with Beachside making their first critical error with long service for the 25-22 Bronco win. 

In the decisive fourth game, Beachside took command to a 17-10 opening salvo that grew to 23-12 and a final 25-13 as the Broncos were off on most of their scoring attempts under the pressure of the Beachside attacks. 

"Camden tried her best to generate some energy in the fourth game, but Beachside you can't beat with one player attacking," said Forkum, noting Rahn's older sister Connor, the leader of the 2023 state champion Middleburg team, is excelling as a sophomore hitter at University of Tampa, now still undefeated at 19-0. "She had a great season for us and will do well in college (West Virginia University)." 

Note: Connor Rahn was recently named the Sunshine State Conference offensive player of the week (Oct. 21) for a second time with 11 kills in a 3-0 win over No. 8 Lynn University. Rahn was first selected on Sept. 8.