From serious sports injuries causing tissue damage to bone issues and stiffness that comes with age, living with pain is, well, a pain. But it's more than that - it's a stressful, often upsetting way to get through your day, month, and year. Have you ever tried to get out of bed with sore, stiff knees? Most folks would rather just get back in bed. Think you might try exercising with plantar fasciitis? Don't plan on running far or doing cardio for very long. Torn rotator cuff? Without proper treatment, your life might not ever be the same.
Living with pain and the inevitable issues that come with age can seriously affect your wellbeing and happiness. Sure, you could wake up every morning and rely on addicting medications to help you move. Or, you could risk further injury and damage with invasive surgeries that require long periods of recovery and downtime. But those can't be the only two options for treatment, can they?
Fortunately, a new, natural, non-invasive treatment for pain is revolutionizing the medical industry and transforming people's lives. It's giving athletes, average folks, and people of a certain age a reason to be hopeful. It's called Softwave therapy, and unlike many fly-by-night medications and sketchy treatments, it's backed by science and provided by Elite Healthcare Physical Medicine.
If you're barely making it through the day suffering from chronic pain, this FDA-approved drug-free treatment may be for you. Softwave therapy has already been used by thousands of people around the country living with issues like shoulder pain, knee pain, and plantar fasciitis. You could be next.
Though its popularity has only grown in recent years, Softwave therapy - also known as shockwave therapy - has been around for years. In fact, the first systematic study into the benefits of shockwave therapy took place way back in 1950. So, what is Softwave therapy?
Softwave therapy is a method of treatment that works incredibly well for mobility rehab, pain relief, and full-body recovery, usually from chronic pain or injuries. Softwave therapy uses a device emitting low-energy soundwaves that target a patient's injured area. These low-intensity waves boost blood flow and kickstart your body's natural healing processes, relieving long-term pain and helping your body to heal a wide range of injuries and conditions.
The main targets in the body include bones, tendons, and other soft tissues, which are encouraged to regenerate and repair via the shockwaves. Often, shockwave therapy is used in conjunction with other non-invasive treatments like chiropractic care, which we offer at Elite Healthcare Physical Medicine. The results are often incredible, leaving patients wondering why they never tried Softwave therapy before.
Softwave therapy works especially well for:
Better Blood Flow
Collagen Stimulation
Reducing Inflammation
Kickstarting cell growth and healing factors
Breaking down build-ups of calcium
With FDA clearance, little-to-no side effects, and quick application time, Softwave therapy is a welcome alternative for people suffering from pain. Who wants to spend weeks or months recovering from a surgery that might not even work? Likewise, who would want to become dependent on over-the-counter or, even worse, prescription pain meds? Living a life of addiction is a road nobody wants to go down.
Softwave therapy represents a revolution in non-invasive pain treatment; best of all, it's highly effective. Independent studies prove that shockwave therapy helps with pain. 65-91% of patients using shockwave therapy experienced real-deal improvements in damaged muscle and bone tissue, solving their mobility problems and drastically reducing pain. It almost sounds too good to be true, but as many patients at Elite Healthcare Physical Medicine will tell you - it isn't.
Book AppointmentSome of the most common conditions that Softwave therapy treats include:
When you get up in the morning and go to the bathroom to brush your teeth, do you notice a stabbing, sharp pain near your heel? Does the pain go away once you have a chance to walk around? If so, you could have plantar fasciitis. According to the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons, this painful condition is quite common. About two million people suffer from plantar fasciitis every year, and almost 10% of all people will experience the condition at least once in their life.
This common foot issue happens when the plantar fascia - a fan-shaped tissue near your heel - gets inflamed. The plantar fascia is a thick strip of connective tissue that links your toes to your heel bone, helping to preserve the arch of your foot. When this band is strained, it causes intensely sharp pain, usually in the morning when you wake up and plant your feet on the floor.
Most folks ignore plantar fasciitis because the pain eventually goes away throughout the day. However, if left untreated, plantar fasciitis can lead to weakness and chronic pain, which may affect daily walking.
Some causes of plantar fasciitis include:
The short answer to this question is not really. Patients with plantar fasciitis will ice the affected area with little-to-no relief since they spend so much time on their feet. It's hard to rest an achy heel if you've got a job that requires you to be on your feet. Anti-inflammatory meds like Advil don't work all that well, either. They may provide temporary pain relief, but in terms of a long-term solution, taking these drugs will cause major side effects.
Book AppointmentWhen more conservative treatment options like ice and over-the-counter meds don't work, most doctors turn to ultra-expensive orthotics, steroid injections, or invasive surgery. For the average person, those options fail on all fronts, as they carry risks for side effects and may even cause the issue to worsen.
Instead of going under the knife or changing their daily routines, many people suffering from plantar fasciitis are turning to Softwave therapy for relief.
During a shockwave therapy session, our expert providers use a special probe to deliver pressure waves to inflamed tissue. These waves trigger natural healing processes causing new blood vessels to form. In turn, oxygen is supplied to the affected area, reducing inflammation and causing healthy cells to regenerate. Shockwave therapy also produces collagen, which is crucial for connective tissue health.
With just a few visits, many patients find long-term relief from plantar fasciitis without relying on strange drugs or harmful surgeries.
Living with knee pain is just miserable. From knee tendonitis to osteoarthritis, knee pain can prevent you from enjoying activities and affect your day-to-day life. Your knee is a joint comprised of cartilage, bone, ligaments, and fluids. Tendons and muscles within the knee help the joint move. When one of these crucial knee structures is hurt or compromised, it results in knee pain and long-lasting knee problems. This, in turn, leads to difficulty walking at best and debilitating knee issues at worse.
If you're an active person or somebody who plays sports often, you're probably all too familiar with knee pain - especially common conditions like patellar tendinopathy. Also called "jumpers knee," this issue happens at the patellar tendon, which is found on the front of the knee just under the knee cap. When living with this condition, most patients experience pain around the kneecap or lower down on the leg around the tibia.
In addition to injuries and issues like jumper's knee, everyday wear and tear will cause knee pain over time. With time, this knee pain can develop into arthritis. If your knees are swollen, painful, or stiff, you may have arthritis in your knees. Regardless of the kind of knee pain you're experiencing, treatment options have been limited to agonizing surgeries and addicting pain medications. But that all changes with shockwave therapy for knee pain in Charleston, SC.
Though no two knee pain problems are exactly the same, shockwave therapy has been shown to be highly effective for knee pain. In fact, many patients at Elite Healthcare Physical Medicine find relief after just one session. Many times, sessions can be completed in as little as 30 minutes. So if you want to find relief for knee pain on your lunch break, that's definitely possible.
As is the case with plantar fasciitis, Softwave therapy works by sending sound wave and low-energy impulses to the affected area of your knee. These pulses stimulate your body's healing factors, which can help regenerate and repair damaged tendons and tissues. Softwave therapy for knee pain is especially promising for people who have tried other treatments - like surgery and pain meds - with disappointing results.
Benefits include:
Several studies and reviews prove that Softwave therapy can be very beneficial for people suffering from knee pain problems like jumper's knee. A study involving 66 patients with knee pain found that they enjoyed a significant improvement in their reported pain levels with Softwave therapy. In fact, knee pain was reduced by nearly 50% after a single month. When combined with other regenerative and physical therapy treatments at Elite Healthcare Physical Medicine, your days of living with knee pain are numbered.
Book AppointmentHere's a fact for you to consider: Every joint that you have in your body plays a part in your day-to-day life. But when we think of joint issues, we typically jump to knee issues. However, your knees aren't the only joints in your body to go through wear and tear. Your shoulders experience just as much, if not more, wear and tear than your knees. We put a strain on our shoulders just about every time we use or move our arms. Our shoulders play a pivotal part in living a normal life. When they begin to deteriorate over time due to age or overuse, it creates a litany of painful problems.
There are many causes of shoulder pain, like deterioration, inflammation, and trauma. Of the many painful shoulder conditions affecting Americans yearly, rotator cuff tendonitis and arthritis are very common. Also called calcific tendinitis, rotator cuff pain is caused by built-up calcium deposits on the shoulder's tendons, which connect your rotator cuff to nearby muscles and bones. This painful condition is usually linked to sports, like basketball and volleyball, or in professions requiring repetitive movements, like in the plumbing industry.
Some common symptoms of shoulder pain and rotator cuff tendinitis include:
Though strengthening exercises and some medications provide temporary relief for shoulder pain, they're not meant as long-term solutions. Luckily, Softwave therapy for rotator cuff pain in Charleston, SC, can help.
Shockwave therapy has been shown to work wonders for shoulder pain. Low-intensity shockwaves break up calcium deposits and jumpstart your body's healing processes, stimulating blood flow and healthy cell growth. Shockwave treatment is especially effective for long-term shoulder pain since it releases stem cells, sends growth factors to the affected area, and boosts capillary production. Shockwave therapy has also been shown to break down scar tissue and eliminate trigger points, all of which decrease shoulder pain. This relief is most often long-lasting, unlike other treatments like medications and injections.
Many studies support the efficacy of Softwave therapy for shoulder conditions like rotator cuff pain and calcific tendonitis of the shoulder. In a study of 84 patients living with long-term rotator cuff tendonitis, participants in the treatment group saw a significant decrease in the intensity of their shoulder pain. Another study related to shockwave therapy for calcific tendonitis found that 86.6% of patients experienced fewer calcifications.
If you're having to live with rotator cuff pain or another type of shoulder issue, choosing Softwave therapy may be your best course of action.
Book AppointmentWhether you're sick of living with intense heel pain from plantar fasciitis, the mobility issues associated with knee pain, or the day-to-day struggles of rotator cuff degeneration, you'll find hope at Elite Healthcare Physical Medicine. Unlike some medical clinics, our team of doctors and specialists focus on an integrative, multidisciplinary approach to healing. Instead of relying on addictive medications and invasive surgeries, we prefer to address the underlying causes that our patients face.
We combine several all-natural pain relief therapies so that your shoulder pain, knee pain, joint pain, and foot pain go away for good. We resolve pain by using healing treatments that restore function and improve mobility for the long term. Our state-of-the-art regenerative medicine treatments, used hand-in-hand with proven chiropractic techniques, will stimulate your body's healing power from within. If your pain is related to muscles, nerves, and bones, our doctors can help you overcome discomfort, injury, or medical conditions affecting these systems.
If you've been unable to resolve your pain or have become dependent on painkillers to cope, Softwave therapy may be the natural solution you need. It all starts with a quick call to our office, so we can begin to understand your needs. When you come for your first visit, our doctors will find the personalized treatment you need so that you can manage your pain in a non-invasive and drug-free environment manner.
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Jails in Charleston and Richland counties have been in the spotlight for deaths of mentally ill inmates, brutal violence and reports of filthy living conditions, but they are far from the only troubled jails in the state. Read more2 SC jails target of DOJ investigations. But issues rampant in jails across state.
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The No. 6 South Carolina women’s basketball team is in Paris for its season-opener against No. 10 Notre Dame, and The Post and Courier’s David Cloninger is along for the ride. Check out all of The Post and Courier’s French dispatches throughout the week.
Offered in three floor plans, the initial 18 units across three buildings range from 1,800-2,000 square feet and include a garage. A second phase is on the way.
The joint 11,500-square-foot building wraps around the backside of the corner structure at two prominent Charleston streets.
At this time last year and the year before, city council members were looking at budget deficits between $4 million and $5 million. In 2020, that number was $18 million. This year, tourism revenue is giving the city a boost. Read moreAs tourism revenues bounce back, Charleston residents may be spared a tax increase in 2024
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A feast to rememberSitting down at a rodizio-style restaurant can be daunting, but that ultimately gives way to childlike wonder and excitement once you see the big cuts of meat impaled on skewers that are paraded out of the kitchen and straight to the table.From filet mignon and New York strip to parmesan-crusted pork loin and lamb chops, the diversity in options is staggering. Going in with the intention of tasting everything will leave you crawling out the front door later. But don’t let it stop you from trying....
Sitting down at a rodizio-style restaurant can be daunting, but that ultimately gives way to childlike wonder and excitement once you see the big cuts of meat impaled on skewers that are paraded out of the kitchen and straight to the table.
From filet mignon and New York strip to parmesan-crusted pork loin and lamb chops, the diversity in options is staggering. Going in with the intention of tasting everything will leave you crawling out the front door later. But don’t let it stop you from trying.
Guests are given a two-sided card — one side green, the other red. Flipping the card to the green face tells the chefs — or gauchos — that you’re ready to go. Any time a cut of meat is ready to serve, it’s taken directly off a 600- to 900-degree rotisserie grill in the kitchen and directly to the dining room. Gauchos cut off pieces of the meat from table to table until it’s gone.
“Some places you go and you order steak, but this is different,” said Edson Ludwig, area manager of Galpao Gaucho, a Brazilian steakhouse downtown. “It’s all about the experience. The chefs bring the experience directly to the table and ask you, ‘How do you like it?’ To cut the desired temperature right there and experience the variety — it’s unlike anything anywhere else.”
The meat lacks the smoky flavor popular in U.S. barbecue, as gaucho-chefs seek to preserve the natural flavor of the farm-raised beef. Smoking the meat can alter the taste, but the rotisserie slowly cooks the meat until the outer layer is nicely seared and the inside is tender and juicy.
Traditionally, gauchos were cowboys or ranchers, and a sort of folk symbol in regions of South America, including Argentina and Brazil. The gaucho-chefs of Brazilian steakhouses today have adopted the name to represent that history and culture.
While the concept is somewhat familiar in the Lowcountry — with local steakhouses Galpao Gaucho opening in 2020 and Cowboy Brazilian Steakhouse opening in North Charleston in 2016 — the style of dining has deep roots in Brazil.
“This is very traditional in Brazil, especially if you go to the South,” said Cowboy Brazilian co-owner Ana Maria Dias. “But really, it’s everywhere. Almost any restaurant you go to is just like this.”
Dias is from northern Brazil, where she previously worked in the hospitality industry operating a hotel service. She moved to the U.S. with her husband and started working in the kitchen at Cowboy Brazilian before buying it from the previous owners during the pandemic, she said.
Ludwig is from southern Brazil and was raised as a gaucho taking care of cattle on the family farm. He moved to San Paulo and spent many years in the restaurant business before moving to the U.S. in 2002 and starting to work in Brazilian steakhouses, which reminded him of home, he said.
“The culture of the steakhouses here is the same we have in Brazil,” he said. “The experience itself is the same as you’d get in Brazil, too. We’ve preserved the authenticity with the service style.”
A 2016 article from Eater says it’s almost impossible to determine who really invented the rodizio, which means rotation, style of dining, as several Brazilian restaurants claim the “first” title. But the concept was popularized in the mid-1900s, the article says, coinciding with Brazil’s big road-construction boom. Restaurants opened around the country to feed truck drivers, and grilled meat was the easiest and cheapest food to serve, as the region boasted huge numbers of cattle herds.
Ludwig said he has worked to ensure that Galpao Gaucho is as true to that history as possible.
“It’s so important to focus on preserving these southern Brazilian traditions with the gaucho-chefs. It’s a very important part of our culture,” he said. “The leave-in style — the cowboy that grows up on the farm, taking care of the cattle, that’s our roots.”
The service style isn’t the only thing that has made its way from Brazil.
“The meat is totally accurate in the way it’s done, especially the sauce and chimichurri,” Dias said. “The one we call the ‘house special’ is the one I like the most. In Brazil, we call it picanha.”
Picanha is a Brazilian steakhouse staple. The most traditional cut, taken from the top of a cow’s rump and seasoned heavily with salt, is skewered into a C shape before going on the rotisserie grill. It’s similar to a sirloin in flavor and texture, but a juicy fat cap infuses the steak with flavor and tenderness that you can’t find anywhere else.
“That fat cap on the outside is what makes the picanha special,” Ludwig said. “As the meat turns on the skewer, the fat melts and runs over the meat. That’s where the flavor is.”
Galpao Gaucho also offers a “spicy” picanha that packs a bit of a kick, but not too much so that anyone can still enjoy it.
“The seasonings are also very traditional Brazilian, and most cuts just have sea salt,” Ludwig said. “We keep the natural flavors of the meat, but with 17 different options, they all have different seasonings — the lamb, the chicken, the pork and the seafood.
“The lamb is marinated in white wine and fresh mint blended with spices like garlic and pepper. The chicken is heavily seasoned with a blend of different spices, and the pork has a white wine marinade with a different spice blend.”
But what really enhances the flavor of the meat is the sauces. As is traditional, both restaurants make their chimichurri and other sauces from scratch — a perfect pairing for the steak, especially the picanha.
While Brazilian steakhouses may not be the best spot for vegetarians, the salad bars and hot bars offer options meant to pad guests between rounds of meat.
Mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, Brazilian-style black beans, fresh salad greens, potato salad, smoked salmon and more are featured on an all-you-can-eat, self-serve salad bar. And it’s here that you’ll find some more familiar selections, too, Dias said.
“The salad bar is adapted a little to American tastes,” she said. “But you’ll find some traditional options there, too.”
Some non-meat options are also served rodizio style, including the famed pineapple. Grilled on the rotisserie to glistening perfection, then rolled in cinnamon for a sweet, spicy bite, the pineapple is a Brazilian staple that serves as both dessert and a way to get you back in the game.
“Even when you’re full, you always have room for the pineapple,” Dias said, laughing. “So many people come back just for that.”
Bread and cheese options are also abundant, with fresh baked rolls and puffed breads that pair perfectly with the chimichurri or butter. Galpao Gaucho’s cheese bread is baked with yucca flour, making it gluten free to boot.
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Tagged: Brazilian food, Brazilian steakhouse, gauchos, rodizio
Wes Denney, owner of Brown Dog Deli, is a TikTok star, but he has a confession to make: He’s not really all that into TikTok.Fortunately for him, his daughter Hailey is, and when she coaxed him into goofing around on camera, he figured it would be a good daddy-daughter bonding time. Little did he know that one of the videos would leap to 5 million views and his business would expand as a result.“The idea was something for us to do and something for the staff to do,” Denney said. “After hours, we would ge...
Wes Denney, owner of Brown Dog Deli, is a TikTok star, but he has a confession to make: He’s not really all that into TikTok.
Fortunately for him, his daughter Hailey is, and when she coaxed him into goofing around on camera, he figured it would be a good daddy-daughter bonding time. Little did he know that one of the videos would leap to 5 million views and his business would expand as a result.
“The idea was something for us to do and something for the staff to do,” Denney said. “After hours, we would get together, we’d get a small group and do TikToks. I had heard of it, but I couldn’t spell it. I didn’t have the app, and I refused to watch them. My daughter was in charge, and it was very small scale. I think it was like, ‘Let’s get revenge on dad and make him look stupid on TikTok!’”
The idea, which started about two years ago, grew with the audience, and Hailey engaged the dancing talents of one of the employees, who happened to be head of the Charleston Cougarettes at the College of Charleston, Madi Lynch.
The first videos were only modestly popular. “One day, we made a video where my daughter and the others would run from the house and run into Brown Dog and run to the counter and pretend to order, then run to the seat and drink a little chai latte. My daughter and I went out to eat that night, and it was like, ‘Release the Kracken!’ Lo and behold, we’re moving from 600 likes or hits or whatever you call them, to 6,000, and then to 38,000. My daughter is freaking out because this is her dream, and I’m excited because she’s excited. It was neat watching it,” he said.
At that point, he said, he thought maybe it was time to put a little more effort into the videos, and they became more choreographed. The dancers would lip-sync to corny vintage songs, with Denney always hamming it up in the background. He now has a closet of props for the videos and a waiting list of people wanting to be in the videos with him. Even more important, he has a waiting list of about 20 to 30 people who want to work at the deli, a rarity in these short-staffed times.
Denney said the first day after the video reached 5 million views, “I would say that literally, the next day, we had our first lines out the door, and we haven’t skipped a beat since. We’ve gotten busier over time. I’ve had to extend my kitchen, double my staff and change my menu to take off some of the more time-consuming things because it became too hard to get ready.”
That kind of growth is rare, and TikTok took notice of that lightning-in-a-bottle moment to create a small business page that featured Brown Dog Deli.
“I had to do a terrible rap song for the web page — I mean, it was supposed to be terrible — and, at some point, they awarded me with five billboards, three in Charleston. It took six hours to get one good picture of me for that!”
Hailey is a junior at the University of Georgia, and Denney hopes to hand the business over to her some day. For that reason, he won’t do anything too over-the-top, even if it would garner more TikTok viewers.
“I didn’t want too much profanity or racy stuff,” he said. “I wanted the videos to be safe, fun and family-oriented because my face and my business are attached to them.”
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James Island-based artist Cristina Victor showcases Charleston’s ceramic art community in her curatorial debut, SHAPERS. The group exhibition at the James Island Cultural Arts Center includes sculptural ceramic works by 19 Charleston-based artists and is on view now through Jan. 11, 2024.The maximalist, salon-style exhibition serves as an opportunity to recognize an “incredibly dynamic and skilled community that is overdue and deserving of visibility,” Victor said.Born and raised in Miami, Victor received her master&...
James Island-based artist Cristina Victor showcases Charleston’s ceramic art community in her curatorial debut, SHAPERS. The group exhibition at the James Island Cultural Arts Center includes sculptural ceramic works by 19 Charleston-based artists and is on view now through Jan. 11, 2024.
The maximalist, salon-style exhibition serves as an opportunity to recognize an “incredibly dynamic and skilled community that is overdue and deserving of visibility,” Victor said.Born and raised in Miami, Victor received her master’s degree in fine art in San Francisco and is now an interdisciplinary artist and studio art professor at the College of Charleston. She moved here in March 2020 and said “ceramics is what got me through” the pandemic and being alone in a new place.
“It was like this thing I could completely pour myself into and endlessly learn,” she said. “It was endless. It was boundless.” (These are themes explored in Victor’s own colorful sculpture included in the show, titled “Quimbara.”)
To get involved in the local artistic community of her new home, Victor started working at Studio Union, an artist-run studio space in North Charleston. That’s where she connected with artists like Susan Klein, a fellow interdisciplinary artist who also teaches at College of Charleston, and Susan Gregory, who directs Studio Union and is an artist working in ceramics and encaustic.
Victor said the exhibition also relied on her meeting Myra Bowie, who owns Riverland Terrace pottery studio Terrace Clay and introduced Victor to many of the represented artists. Like Studio Union, Terrace Clay is an artist-run studio space founded after the longtime Charleston pottery hub cone10 closed in 2019 — after nearly 20 years serving the artistic community — when its space was bought and demolished due to development on the downtown peninsula.After working in Charleston, Victor decided to curate a group show.
“I knew I had to kind of pay my dues and hang out and see what was going on. But in general, I immediately felt like, there’s a lack of representation of a lot of kinds of artists here.”
Through conversations with fellow artists, Victor began to sense many Charleston artists felt similarly and though art spaces in Charleston represent a very specific kind of work. For artists who are creating experimental, subversive art, the options to show are limited.
“I became aware of this sense that there isn’t a whole lot of representation outside of the kind of art that I feel really appeals to tourism,” she said. “We don’t see enough art about the complexities of the history of this place.”
With these issues of visibility in mind, it was important for Victor that the group exhibition went in an accessible and free community space — that’s why she put SHAPERS in the admission-free James Island Cultural Arts Center.
“I’m kind of punk about things — sitting around waiting for something to happen is not my jam. And so I was like, I’m not seeing this, I’m going to make it.”
A sculptural altar piece by Steph Frederickson invites introspection and meditation, while an artwork of a dilapidated house complete with a spider web inside by Holly T. Benton speaks to themes of ephemeral beauty. A wall of shelves holds many smaller pieces by the group of artists and is presented without labels, as if the works all together represent one large artwork by a collective, rather than individual artists.
The show speaks thematically to community, to Charleston, its beauty and horror, and the compulsive, generative practice that is making artwork — specifically the experience of making three dimensional works which exist in a state of simultaneous physical fragility and powerful presence.
“There’s just a lot of richness here,” Victor said. “And I’m not trying to represent the whole ceramic world of Charleston with this show — I know a lot of people are left out that I probably haven’t met yet or seen yet. I know that there’s a lack of connection with certain communities here. If I do this show again, I want to prioritize finding those kinds of makers.”
Victor received awesome feedback from artists and community members, saying many people agree that a Charleston ceramic salon-style exhibition should occur regularly. She said she hopes SHAPERS “ignites more people to find ways to show their work in ways other than what we’ve had available to us.
“I think we’ve got to demand a little bit more of the city. There’s so much more going on than what’s being shown — we’re busting at the seams. It’s a matter of how we collectively figure that out.”
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It was a match that didn’t decide anything, per se, but it was far from meaningless.And the level of play spoke to that fact.In the end, Woodrow Wilson repeated at the Class AAA Region 3 champion with a four-set 24-26, 25-16, 25-16, 25-18 victory against George Washington Saturday afternoon at Woodrow’s gymnasium.Both teams played their way into next week’s state tournament at the Charleston Coliseum.George Washington beat Greenbrier East 25-16, 25-7, 29-27 earlier Saturday morning and Woodrow Wi...
It was a match that didn’t decide anything, per se, but it was far from meaningless.
And the level of play spoke to that fact.
In the end, Woodrow Wilson repeated at the Class AAA Region 3 champion with a four-set 24-26, 25-16, 25-16, 25-18 victory against George Washington Saturday afternoon at Woodrow’s gymnasium.
Both teams played their way into next week’s state tournament at the Charleston Coliseum.
George Washington beat Greenbrier East 25-16, 25-7, 29-27 earlier Saturday morning and Woodrow Wilson beat South Charleston 25-14, 25-14, 25-16.
Seeds were already determined before Saturday’s regional tournaments for the state tournament which starts Wednesday.
But both teams brought their A games.
The match really turned midway through the second set.
GW scored the first six points of the match and looked to be building on the momentum of a first set they won by scoring the final two points of the set that neither team led by more than three points.
Woodrow fought right back, scoring five straight, and it was eventually tied at 7-7, 8-8, 10-10 and 11-11.
And then it turned.
Woodrow ended up placing shots exactly where it wanted them, coming up with big kills from its front line — namely senior Saira Diehl, Anya Hasan, Salia Harris and Alexis Coleman and Alana Penn, as well as the backline of Emily Gallaher, Abby Mower and Abby Dillon. And Woodrow scored 14 of the final 19 points to take the set and even the match 1-1.
“Just a change in momentum (and) it didn’t come until the middle of that second set,” Woodrow Wilson coach Bre Rhodes said. “We became more of a team, talked like a team and took care of the ball. It’s a win and winning against a team like George Washington is always big, especially heading down to the state tournament.”
The momentum continued to build, although the third set was tight, Woodrow leading 15-14 before running off seven straight points to take charge and eventually win 25-16 again.
The third set stood at 11-10 before Woodrow Wilson again surged with 10 of the next 12 to basically put the match out of reach. Woodrow won it 25-18.
“We’ve just been on a roll the last couple of weeks,” Rhodes said. “They are coming together as a team, communicating and everything is coming together like we need it to come together right now.”
She praised the effort of her three seniors, Diehl, Gallaher and Mower.
“Emily and Abby are just constant,” Rhodes said. “And Saira with the blocks and the hits out there. They make a big difference.”
Now Woodrow heads back to the state tournament for the third year in a row.
“It means everything,” Gallaher said of making it to the state tournament for the third year. “It’s my senior year and the last couple of years we went, and we lost in the first round. This year I really think we can take it there.”
The loss by Greenbrier East was a sad affair for coach Matt Sauvage, who coached his daughter Dia for the final time.
“It was better than I ever thought it could be,” he said of coaching his daughter. “You always wonder how it’s going to be coaching your kids. It’s a different relationship but I can honestly say she has been a great kid to coach. Not just talent wise. She is a great talent. But it’s built our relationship even stronger and that’s all you can ask for as a dad.”
Sauvage also praised his other three seniors.
“We ended up 43-13, which is a great record, but that’s not what I’m going to take away from this team.” Sauvage said. “They are all great young ladies. They are awesome. That’s my takeaway from this team. Peyton Barker is one of those people that if you don’t like her, something is wrong with you. Taylor Boswell came out after two years off and it was amazing to have her back out with us. Gracie Gumm is another one who if you don’t, like her something is wrong with you. All four of these young ladies were big contributors to our success and all four of those girls are going to go so far in whatever they do. I can’t speak enough good things about these girls.”
The only drawback Saturday was the start, losing 25-16, 25-7.
“The first two sets we were struggling a little bit there, I don’t know if we were nervous, but we came out slow,” Sauvage said. “The third set (29-27 GW) it was nice to see them turn it around. They gave it all they had, and it was a fun set for sure.”