Padua Franciscan, Lake Catholic will meet in all-North Coast League Division II state final
Two teams from the same league will again meet in a state championship match, and for a change they won’t be from the Greater Girls Cincinnati League, or anywhere near Cincinnati for that matter. Two Cleveland area schools, Parma Padua Franciscan and Mentor Lake Catholic, advanced to a North Coast League showdown yesterday.
Top ranked Padua downed #11 Columbus Bishop Hartley for the second time this year 25-20, 25-19, 25-14.
Padua started off jittery in game, and with Shelby Sagle and Olivia Johnson digging Padua Ohio State hitting recruit Kaitlyn Leary, Hartley took advantage of errors to go up 7-2.
Padua rallied ahead 11-9 on seven straight behind serving of Becky Jay and, after a final tie at 11, the Bruins led all the way, albeit Hartley stayed close. Padua scored the final three points of the game on kills by Christie Fritsche and Leary.
Game two saw point trading to start as Hartley, led by Sagle, took a 5-4 lead. Padua moved in front 8-5 and 10-6, as libero Lauren Goebel made some difficult passes.
The Hawks rallied for six on a kills by Sagle and Charanna Dixon, and an ace from Lauren Hughes. But Fritsche spiked three straight kills as the Bruins moved back in front 14-12. Hartley tied on an ace by libero Jillian Brown, and point trading took the score to 16-16.
But Hartley hit into the net after Brown had dug a spike from Leary, and Leary followed with a tip, to spark a four point run. Hartley fought hard to break the run, digging Leary three times before Hawks outside hitter Madison Brake scored a kill down the line. But things came undone when Hartley compounded using an illegal server with being out of rotation, thereby yielding two points. Leary followed that with an ace, and scoring went back and forth until Fritsche ended it with a blast to back left.
Hartley scored first in game three on a hitting error, but Padua answered with three, and soon after added six more as Leary pounded two kills. Hartley freshman middle Brooke Betts blocked to end a long volley. Leary responded with another kill and then served nine points on line drive jump serves. One was an ace, and the others came on Hartley miscues, due mainly to the Hawks being out of system. That left the score at 20-4 and it was a matter of time before middle hitter Carly Molls ended the match with a spike off the block.
Padua Coach Anthony Messina said afterward “I think the girls played awesome. Our goal was to get back and we got back…and now we have an opportunity to play for the state title”. Messina said his team exposed some weaknesses in games one and two, “but in game three we really turned it on”. Kaitlyn Leary added “We got our nerves out in game one”.
When asked why they were nervous having been there before, Christie Fritsche noted that not everyone had played on the court before.
There shouldn’t be any nerves today. They’ve already seen Lake Catholic twice this year.
Stats:
Padua Franciscan: Kills – Kaitlyn Leary 15, Christie Fritsche 14; Assists – Mary Djukic 18, Meredith Bolmeyer 16; Digs – Salina DeFranco 10, Leary 9, Lauren Goebel 8; Service Aces – Leary 4; Block Assists – Carly Molls 3
Bishop Hartley: Kills – Shelby Sagle 9; Assists – Olivia Johnson 13; Digs – Jillian Brown 11, Sagle 8
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In the second match, #18 Lake Catholic rallied from 0-2 to nip undefeated third rated Logan Elm 21-25, 19-25, 25-15, 25-20, 15-13. Lake Catholic Coach Rich Severino remarked afterward “It’s funny, but this is the first time we’ve gone five all year and it would be in a state semifinal”.
Severino said the reason for his team’s slow start was “definitely nerves” noting they were hitting balls out and making service errors. Logan Elm outscored the Cougars on points coming from errors 8-3 in game one and 12-6 in game two.
Logan Elm led all the way in game one, except for a tie at 19. The Braves scored their first two on Cougar errors, and pulled ahead 9-3 behind hitting of Bowling Green State University recruit Paige Penrod, and two points by twins Haley and Hannah Gabriel.
Lake Catholic closed to 11-10 and stayed within three for the most part, but every rally would be nipped by either an error or Penrod. When the Cougars finally tied at 19, Hannah Gabriel scored a second touch kill and after long Cougar hit, Penrod slammed another of her 35 kills (she had 95 attacks!), and Logan Elm was up 23-19. Soon after, Penrod terminated the game.
(Penrod set a state record 45 kills in a match in last year's regional semifinal with Urbana).
Game two was similar as Lake Catholic spotted the Braves two points on wide hits. Cougar middle Chelsey Regovich spiked two kills to tie, but the Cougars made two more mistakes and Haley Gabriel scored a kill.
Regovich ended that run and outside hitter Nicole Snyder added two kills for another tie, but Gabriel scored again and Penrod terminated into deep middle. Logan Elm led from there, although again the Cougars stayed close. They crept within 14-13 only to make two errors while Penrod blasted two kills, and again to within 20-18 with a similar result.
Penrod ended things the same way as game one. Boom!
But Coach Severino saw a bright side in all this. If his players would settle down and stop making errors there was, as he told them, “no reason we can’t win three straight”. He smiled and added “That really was the only option I had at that point”.
The Cougars did settle down, and after they fell behind 10-8 in game three, they put together a 10-1 run on serving of Audryana Lucha and 5’11” junior outside Bridget Grdina, and accurate hitting by Snyder, Melanie Patterson and Regovich. They also ‘held’ Penrod to four kills, and from there they coasted home as Gina Catania served a game point ace.
Penrod said later that Logan Elm’s passes in game three and after were shaky and the sets were everywhere, and she wasn’t able to hit as solidly as in the first two games. Of course, good serving and hitting on one side tend to go hand in hand with not so good passing and setting on the other, and vice versa.
Game four was a battle with seven ties and two lead changes. But the Cougars, who opened up with leads of 2-0 and 5-2, made no service errors, which helped. Logan Elm scored three to tie and went ahead 11-9 behind points by Penrod. Lake Catholic moved back on top 12-11 and advanced to 16-13. A four point run on which Cougar libero Kelly Stenger dug a blast from Penrod made it 21-16.
With the score 24-20, Stenger dove at the net to save a block, and Patterson followed with a game ending kill.
In the tiebreaker it was Lake Catholic benefiting from two Logan Elm miscues to start, and Stenger helped with one by again digging Penrod. The Cougars moved in front 6-3 but Logan Elm tied the core. And after Lucha dumped into a hole, Rebekka Lucas retied the score with a kill off the block, and Penrod sent Logan Elm fans into frenzied cheering by digging a Cougar bomb, and then popping a Cougar block into a hole for a kill.
After a Lake Catholic timeout, however, the Cougars erupted for four to go up 11-8, as Stenger dug Penrod again. Alyvia Clark and Hannah Gabriel answered with two points. Gabriel’s was a heads-up two hander down the right line. But Grdina interrupted hopes of a comeback and Lucha served an ace to make it 13-10.
Penrod scored from backcourt and a Cougar hit sailed out to leave the score 13-12. On the next volley, Lucas and Stenger each made great passes before Snyder scored with a cross-court shot. But the Cougars got into the net trying to block Penrod.
With the score 14-13 Cougars, Snyder spiked through a double block on her right. When the ball dropped to the floor on Logan Elm’s side the match was over.
Stats:
Lake Catholic: Kills Bridget Grdina 21, Nicole Snyder 17, Melanie Patterson 14, Chelsey Regovich 8; Assists – Audryana Lucha 58; Digs - Kelly Stenger 24, Gina Catania 21, Bridget Grdina 16, Audryana Lucha 13; Service Aces – Lucha 3, Grdina, Regovich 2
Logan Elm: Kills – Paige Penrod 35, Haley Gabriel 7, Alyvia Clark 6; Assists – Hannah Gabriel 39; Digs – Haley Gabriel 22, Penrod 18, Clark 17, Hannah Gabriel 15, Rebekka Lucas 11; Service Aces – Penrod 4, Danielle Wipert 2
