Highland’s Logan Bradley prepares to hit the ball in her team’s win over Buckeye Valley in Saturday’s district championship volleyball match.
Rob Hamilton | Morrow County Sentinel
For the seventh time in 11 years, the Highland volleyball team will be competing at regionals.
The Scots advanced to the Division II regional semifinals, which will be hosted by Vandalia Butler High School, on Saturday when they traveled to Westerville Central and toppled Buckeye Valley by scores of 25-21, 25-16 and 25-19.
Much like their district semifinal bout against London, the Scots won a hard-fought first set, used that momentum to handily win the second set and then overcame their opponent’s challenge in the third to emerge victorious.
“We just relied on our serving,” said head coach Rob Terrill. “We missed a lot in the first set and we just stuck with it. We try to find that fine line of putting pressure on them. We were missing a few more than I would have liked, but we did a great job of putting pressure on them all day.”
Terrill looked at that as a key to victory, noting that the Barons are the sort of team he didn’t want to have dictating the match.
“They’re a little bit of an unorthodox team,” he said. “You don’t know when it’s coming; they’re just going to put pressure on you, too. It was a great, competitive match just to feel them out and get into a rhythm ourselves. They kept us on our toes and that’s what made it fun.”
While the Scots were missing a few serves in the early stages of the first set, they were playing good enough on defense to keep within a 10-9 margin. Then, the team got two points from Savanna Sanborn and four more from Camryn Miller to jump out to a 16-11 advantage. Two points by MaKaylee Merckling turned an 18-14 lead into a six-point advantage. The set wouldn’t be over yet, though, as the Barons got two points from Gabbie Schneider and one from Katelynn Tranel to close within a 21-19 score.
Highland would get a defensive point followed by one from the serving of Larsen Terrill to go back up by four, though, and from there, the team’s defense would get the final two points needed to go in front 1-0 in the match.
The Scots would never trail in the second set, although the score was close for a good chunk of it. Holding a 16-13 lead, Highland would get hot offensively to pull away, though. Merckling scored one point to get the team started and then Addison Mullins added a point and both Terrill and Sanborn scored twice, while the defense gave up nothing, as the Scots went up 2-0 in the match.
Rob Terrill said that his team’s rigorous schedule does a great job of preparing them for these high-pressure playoff situations.
“We take pride in that,” he said. “I told the girls between summer and preseason and into our season, we beat four state-ranked teams during the year and I bet there’s 20 to 25 teams playing in district championships today that we either saw during the summer, saw during scrimmages or saw during the season. We play that competition so much that we’re not frazzled when it gets close or tight or we get down a couple sets. The girls really do a great job of looking ahead to the next point.”
A four-point run by Kameron Stover early in the third set staked the Scots to an 8-3 lead, but Buckeye Valley would fight back to make it close. Trailing 15-10, the Barons got two points each from Hazely Wagner and Alia Schoonover to get within a 16-15 count. Stover would come up big for Highland. After a defensive point made it 17-15, she added three straight points to give the Scots a five-point lead. On the team’s next two possessions, both Miller and Mullins got one point each to keep their team in front and they would be able to close out the set and make it back to regionals.
Next up for Highland will be a familiar opponent as they take on Hamilton Badin, who eliminated them in the regional semifinals last year. Terrill is looking forward to the contest, as he feels his team has something to prove.
“You just have to take it one step at a time,” he said. “Last year, I think Badin was probably looking over us and we won the first set and could have won the second and we battled all the way through four and they end up in state. I felt it could have been us.”
Rob Hamilton can be reached at 419-946-3010, ext. 1807. Connect with him on Twitter at @SportsMCS
