The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Brutal NCL provides litmus tests for Gilmour
Joining the North Coast League will provide Gilmour with plenty of litmus tests in one of the Ohio’s toughest conferences for volleyball. Nate Barnes checks in with the Lancers.
Gilmour’s volleyball program is well-established as one of Northeast Ohio’s most prominent. The Lancers won the 2015 Division III state championship, own nine regional titles and a dozen more district crowns.
Yet the 2018 fall season marks a first on Gilmour’s court. The Lancers open their inaugural season as members of the North Coast League — the first time Gilmour’s volleyball team is a member of a conference since its days in the MAC-8.
“I think it’s incredible,” senior setter Megan Brzozowski said. “I love the competition.”
Gilmour joined the NCL for all sports ahead of the 201819 school year. Cleveland St. Joseph Academy, a Division I volleyball powerhouse, accompanied the Lancers’ entrance into the league.
Gilmour and St. Joseph add to a league already filled with elite programs. The Lancers now share a conference with back-to-back D-II state champion Padua, Lake Catholic, Notre DameCathedral Latin, Beaumont and Villa Angela-St. Joseph, among the rest of the NCL members.
Competition for a league title in Ohio’s top conference adds excitement and to the Lancers’ regular season. During previous seasons as an independent program, matches played in August and September served more as a preseason ahead of a deep postseason run.
“In years past, we could go 0-22 and no one would really care and we’d win the state playoffs,” Coach Danny Coughlin said. “Here, you want to play because you want to win your league. Granted, that’s not our ultimate goal, but we’re still going to play our butts off to finish in that top two, top three.”
Now, as NCL members, the Lancers face state-caliber opponents on a weekly basis.
Next to more consequential regular-season competition, Brzozowski, fellow senior libero Kenzie O’Connor and their teammates will compete more frequently against familiar opponents. During the high school offseason, the Lancers call players from Lake Catholic, NDCL and other schools teammates during Junior Olympic play.
“Playing against your friends instills a fire in you to want to beat them more,” O’Connor said. “I think that, especially, because we’ve been playing at Gilmour now, this is our fourth year, we know a lot of the players that we’re playing. It’s like little competitions between yourselves that doesn’t really matter against the points.”
Head-to-head play against friends adds a personal layer to already heated matches.
“There’s no other feeling like going back to serve and acing one of your friends that used to be on your JO team,” O’Connor said. “That’s the best.”
Rivalries will develop, as will Gilmour’s experience in meaningful matches. Coughlin and his players admit they sometimes treated matches as walkthroughs, in which they didn’t need to exert maximum effort to beat an opponent.
The Lancers won’t expect to show up to an NCL match, fall behind early then flip a switch to mount a comeback win.
“In the playoffs, we’re going to be fighting for every single match,” Brzozowski said. “This is only going to prepare us, so we’re going to come out fighting. That’s all we can do.”