The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Gilmour, NDCL capture volleyball state titles
NDCL repeats in Division II
FAIRBORN » On Nov. 14, they finally celebrated.
Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin had been waiting over 53 weeks to do it. The Lions played through 27 matches without being able to show much emotion or celebrate. As the defending champions in Division II and with six seniors returning, nothing short of taking home another title was going to be good enough for anybody — including themselves.
After making 14 unforced errors in set one, NDCL refused to lose, beating Plain City Jonathan Alder, 3-1 (1425, 25-18, 25-17, 25-16), to win its second straight Division II championship.
“We were down a set and playing poorly. The girls were determined,” NDCL coach Tom Ray said. “I went to talk to them in the huddle and Erica (Kostelac) said, “We’re going to play and we’re going to win. We’re going to figure it out and we’re not going to lose.”
The Lions’ block, led by Ambre Pierce, Steph Hetki and Emily Suppel, turned things around. They slowed down hits at the net and held the Pioneers to .014 hitting.
Pierce had five of her 11 kills, tied for a game high, in the second set. Two of her last three were back to back, giving the Lions a 2215 lead as they exploited their best matchup.
“We figured her speed could beat (Karlee Reynolds’) size,” Ray said. “In the second set, the middle was eight inches shorter than Ambre. She could go up, over and around. It opened the floor. Mentally it focused their team on Ambre. That’s good for what we are. All these kids can put a ball away and we can attack out of every position, in and out of system. Once we got into a rhythm, we figured it out.”
An attack error by Jonathan Alder gave the Lions an 8-7 lead. Hetki and Suppel blocked to extend that.
“We knew we were not playing well going into the second set,” Kostelac said. “We turned it around. We came this far and have been working so hard all season. We were not going to let it come down to not playing good.”
The Lions had four blocks in the third set and three more in the fourth.
“We just had a go-getit attitude at the net,” said setter Emily Weigand, who had two blocks.
“It started to force the other team to alter the way it played,” Hetki added of NDCL’s blocking efforts.
Outside of an error giving Jonathan Alder a 1-0 lead to start the fourth set, NDCL didn’t trail. After that error, Emily Suppel had a kill to tie it back up. The Pioneers tied the set at 12-12 for the last time. An error gave the Lions the lead back. Kostelac extended that with a kill. She and Suppel had the final three kills to clinch the repeat and start the celebration.
“It’s so great to have that pressure gone and the season behind us,“Kostelac said. “To win states again is awesome. ... We couldn’t really cheer again until we got to this point. We couldn’t get that excited because we had another game in front of us.”
Previously undefeated Jonathan Alder was in its first trip to the state tournament. While the Pioneers didn’t wilt under pressure, they didn’t have an answer for the Lions’ block or their experience.
“Their block was a lot stronger than we were ready for,” Jonathan Alder coach Taryn Fuller said. “We were able to get around it some in the last set. They’re a strong, deep team. I’m impressed with how we came out having never been here. We could have been a deer in the headlights Thursday or today. I’m proud of how we showed up.”
Even though the Lions won with a lot of the same group and had higher expectations for themselves than anyone, they still felt they had to prove to a lot of people that last year wasn’t a fluke.
Ashley Zakrajsek, who had six kills and two blocks, was one of the few returning players who didn’t play in last year’s title match.
“It was nice to prove people wrong who said we couldn’t do it,” she said of the repeat.
“We were told we couldn’t do a lot of things,” Ray said. “As freshman, these six seniors were told they weren’t going to do certain things. That’s a pretty good mic drop. We were told we were a one player team and that’s why we won. We proved them wrong.”