The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Riverside Beavers capture title in thriller
Riverside’s season came full circle, capturing its second straight district title and fourth in the last five seasons with a 25-21, 15-25, 19-25, 25-23, 15-10 victory over Mentor on Oct. 27 at Euclid.
The youthful group showed its growth from a 3-1 match loss to Mentor to open the season by rattling off six straight points in the fourth set after trailing 21-18. Sophomores Jen Sivak and Avery Tracz combined for three kills on the run, and they helped to hold off a Mentor rally that cut the lead to 24-23 before Riverside captured the pivotal fourth set.
Riverside continued its tradition of taking a plunge into the Euclid pool upon winning the district title and will take on Solon at Hudson on Nov. 1 in the regional semifinals.
“This season as a whole showed what I completely expected from our team this year,” Riverside coach Ali Schultz said. “I think (coming back to beat Mentor) shows what we were hoping for all season long. We started out building a little bit and had a lot of new people on varsity that had to come together as a team. But I knew we could put the pieces together and they did.”
Part of the team’s maturation process since that mid-August match loss to start the season was Riverside’s experience having to play several matches to the deciding set. It played a huge factor in the district title victory as they roared to a 5-0 lead, getting two kills and a block from Sivak. Kate Tracz had a pair of kills that put Riverside up, 11-4.
Mentor’s Sam Garrett, Sam Connors and Emma Kloski came back with kills to make it 13-10. But after a timeout from coach Ali Schultz, Riverside held on in the final set yet again this season.
“Truly that’s been our M.O. the last month or so,” Schultz said. “We’ve gone down 2-0 or 2-1 to come back and win it in five. All the ones we won in five this season, we said ‘we could have won that in three or four,’ but doing that in our matches prepared us to do that here today. We’ve been here before and we can do it again. We had to start every point and set like it’s a new match. That’s what they did.”
Riverside made a key adjustment early in the first set that it stuck with throughout the match that got Mentor out of its rhythm at times. Caitlin Churney and Maddie Sayer combined for a strong front row and several key blocks that put the Cardinals ahead 11-3.
“I had a challenging block on the right side with their setter,” Kate Tracz said. “Coach helped me to hit around and become more confident.”
“She told us to tip to open spots and hit around them more,” Avery Tracz added about the early adjustment.
Sophomores Sivak, Kate and Avery Tracz combined for 40 kils with Sivak contributing five blocks and
Avery adding 18 digs. Senior setter Aubrey Low led the way to the adjusted offensive attack with 22 assists as well as eight digs.
Mentor, which had its own challenges it was forced to grow from after the passing of coach Stephen Scherlacher, was four points away from another district title in the fourth set with a 21-18 advantage. In addition to her early work on the block, Stayer added 22 assists and 17 kills, believed to be a school record for a setter.
“We made some errors on our side that were uncharacteristic,” Mentor coach Brianne Hrusovsky said. “I knew going in that Riverside had gone to set five a lot. This was only our second time (going to five sets).
I knew that would be a factor. At any point, I thought we could come back but it just got to be too much.”
“What they’ve been through this year, I don’t think a lot of other teams have experience. They stuck together. It shows so much about those girls. They are amazing young ladies on the court and off the court. It was an honor to coach them.”