Richard Montgomery girls volleyball lost Tuesday night to Blair in five close sets. Blair had taken control of the game early, winning the first two sets, but an impressive fight from RM forced the game into the fifth and final set, which Blair hung on to win by two points.

The loss ended the Rockets’ five-game winning streak, and gives the Rockets a record of 5-2. RM had defeated Blair only a few weeks earlier in the Blake Volleyball Tournament.

“It was the most exciting match I’ve seen in two years of watching Brooke play at RM,” Mike Richman said, father of sophomore Brooke Richman. All five sets were decided by five points or less.

Exciting for a spectator, but utterly devastating to the players. RM was winning the fifth set 12-9 before giving up the lead and losing 13-15 to Blair. “With just a few mistakes we lost,” senior Helen Kent said. “We all had a hard time watching Blair celebrate.”

After such a heroic comeback in the third and fourth sets to force the fifth one, the errors were uncharacteristic of the Rockets, and allowed Blair too much leeway with scoring. “It felt great to come back from being down,” Brooke Richman said, but “there were too many errors [in the final set] which gave too many easy points to [Blair].”

“I think we underestimated them when we shouldn’t have,” senior Abby Hernandez said. “Although we did beat them at the Blake Tournament, we should’ve gone into yesterday’s game with a completely new mind set about them.”

The Rockets have until next Tuesday before they face Churchill at home, giving them a long time to mull over this loss. “I think now we just have to keep fighting hard and make sure that we play every team as if they were state champs,” Hernandez said. “We are going to practice hard this week to be prepared for Churchill because they are going to be one tough team to beat.”