VOLLEYBALL: Port Charlotte sweeps Braden River for district title

PORT CHARLOTTE – For Port Charlotte volleyball head coach Julie White, it was an emotional moment.

For four years, she has tried to make her Pirates the top team in the district. Twice she reached the title game, only to come up empty. Plus, the hurricanes had a way of bumming everyone out.

On Saturday, in the District 5A-12 championship game against No. 3 seed Braden River, the third time was the charm as top-seeded Port Charlotte won the “Battle of the Pirates” in straight sets (25-15, 25-20, 25-21) for its first district title since 2020.

Port Charlotte (16-8) will wait to see where it ends up in the region. They and Osceola, which also won its district, have gone back and forth for the top seed for much of the season. If things hold true, the Pirates will be the No. 2 seed, which would bring possibly two home games when regionals kick off Wednesday.

After going through so much the past few weeks, White was thrilled to finally get over the hump.

“For some of them, I’ve been with them for four years. I’m happy, sad, mixed emotions,” White said. “We have this great team chemistry. They play for each other and know what they need to do.”

Despite its 8-16 record, Braden River made Port Charlotte earn the match. In each set they got out to an early lead, only to have the other Pirates storm back.

In the first set, Braden River jumped to a quick 5-0 lead on Olivia Alsum’s serve, only to have Port Charlotte come back on Keira Hundley’s serve before Olivia Oliver broke it open with an 8-0 run on her serve.

Braden River got out to another quick start in the second set, as Mia McGuire set up Baylee Hinkle for several kills. Again, Port Charlotte countered with several short runs to go ahead by two sets.

Braden River hung in to the bitter end, with Rose Reese having a big game at libero as they pulled within 18-16 in the third set. However, it was too much Port Charlotte. Oliver served up another run and the Pirates fed Nygeria Hart, Hundley, who had several blocks, and Harlee Tudor to sew up the championship.

Hart, who had 15 kills and 13 digs, said it was great to finally get a district title under their belts.

“I’m so excited. I knew we could do it from the beginning because we had the best team since I’ve been here,” Hart said. “In the beginning we were a little jittery because it was the district championship. Coach told us to play our game and not worry about it.”

As for Braden River, an upset win over two-seed North Fort Myers in the semifinals earlier this week could only help, said coach Matt McElhiney.

“We scheduled really tough this year and we had our growing pains. We’ve gotten better as the season has gone on. That’s’ what we want,” McElhiney said. “We needed to control the easy balls and we could have done better there, we competed the passed well and played all the way through.”