The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Gilmour, NDCL vie for Division II state title
The Lancers and Lions showed the strength of volleyball in Northeast Ohio in getting to the state championship match. Now they will determine which team is the best in Ohio in Division II.
Gilmour and Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin’s volleyball teams are no strangers to each other.
In each of the past five seasons, the two sides have faced off in what has become a bit of a rivalry. And how could it not be? The schools are 13 miles apart. Players on both teams are teammates outside of OHSAA play and some, like Gilmour libero Emmy Klika, even spent time at the other school.
It’s the perfect recipe for a rivalry that heads to the biggest stage in Ohio, Butler High School, where the two sides will battle for the Division II state championship Nov. 15 at 9 a.m.
“It’s the perfect way to go out,” Klika said. “To go out playing NDCL in the state championship. It just seems
like the perfect way to end things.”
Klika spent eight years at NDCL schools before moving to Gilmour her freshman year of high school. The Lions’ Caroline Jurevicius is Junior Olympic teammates with Gilmour’s Kathyrn Randorf and Sabrina Gremm.
“It’s definitely going to be a very personal match. We’re all going to go our hardest,” Randorf said. “We know what they do and they know what we do, so it’s going to be a battle of who performs.”
The matchups on the court are as exciting as the off-the-court storylines.
A dangerous Gilmour offense with five scoring options going up against a towering NDCL block featuring two 6-foot-2 players.
The reigning News-Herald player of the year, Randorf, is the most well known of the Lancers’ hitters. But others like Gremm have stepped up in a big way during the playoffs.
The junior had 12 kills in the final two sets of Gilmour’s state semifinal victory over Tippecanoe, and set a state tournament record with a 70-percent hitting percentage.
Honorable mention AllOhio selection Brinn MacLellan, Jocelyn Carter and Anna Rarick also contributed in the win over the Red Devils, combining for 25 kills.
On the other side, NDCL’s Jurevicius and Hanna Bissler are two of the Lions’ dangerous options on offense. Jurevicius was one kill shy of tying a D-II state tournament record for kills in a three-match set with 20.
Bissler finished with 13 kills, including five in the tone setting opening set, while Missy Sterkel poured in seven blocks.
Throw in the revenge angle for NDCL, which lost to Gilmour in their first match back from an 18-day gap
in their season due to the coronavirus, and it’s set up to be a match that will be talked about for a long time around Northeast Ohio.
“It was a really rough patch for us,” Bissler said of the Lions’ layoff. “But we all understood the potential that we had. We just had to figure out how we were going to incorporate new lineups in order to get us here.
Both head coaches are hoping to bring recognition to Northeast Ohio, which is well-represented at the state tournament in 2020 with Independence, Padua and St. Joseph Academy all in Vandalia.
“It just really speaks volumes about the amount of talent that’s in Northeast Ohio,” NDCL head coach Tom Ray said.
Gilmour’s Dan Coughlin agrees with his counterpart.
“Northeast (Ohio) is loaded with great volleyball. There are great teams everywhere, and NDCL and us are probably two of the best teams in Ohio,” he said.
That statement turned out to be true, and now the teams will battle to see which is the best Division II team, not only in Northeast Ohio, but in all of Ohio.