Irish, Arrows surge

St. Ursula's Lauran Graves, 8, and Maddie Burnham, 19, defend against Clay's Taylor Kovach, 9, Tuesday, during the Division I volleyball district semifinals in Perrysburg. THE BLADE/JEREMY WADSWORTH Enlarge | Photo Reprints

Top-ranked St. Ursula ran its record to 24-0 in advancing to the Division I district volleyball finals last night with an easy 25-11, 25-13, 25-9 win over Clay at Perrysburg High School.

The Arrows, who have won 10 of the past 11 district championships, will battle Central Catholic in Saturday's 3 p.m. final here.

The Irish (17-7) moved on by winning a rubber match against Notre Dame, 25-17, 26-24, 26-24. Central had beaten the Eagles in Three Rivers Athletic Conference play on Sept. 29, and Notre Dame returned the favor in the TRAC tourney Oct. 15.

PHOTO GALLERY: Division I District Semifinals

In last night's first district semifinal, Central set the tone early with its serve game, delivering five aces in a game they never trailed.

Makahla Jacobs sparked the Irish with four early aces as Central grabbed a 7-1 lead. Notre Dame never got closer than three points (18-15) from there, and the Irish closed out the first game on a Jacobs' kill.

The middle game was more of a back-and-forth battle with 11 ties and eight lead changes before the Irish, trailing 23-21, buckled down to score five of the game's last six points.

Senior team leaders Abby Wietrzykowki and Jennifer Kowalski delivered successive kills to close that game.

"All of our players executed what they needed to," Kowalski said. "Our middle offense was on, and we really decided to finish the games.

"We're really excited to play St. Ursula again. We're going to practice really hard and hopefully get ourselves another win."

Game 3 was also fairly tight early.

Four straight aces from Kaitlin Bronikowski lifted the Irish from a 6-5 deficit to a 9-6 lead. The Irish served 10 aces in the match. Central stayed ahead until the Eagles staged a late rally.

Down 21-17 after a Shelly DeHenning attack sailed long, the Eagles regrouped and used a 6-1 run to grab a 23-22 edge on kills from DeHenning and Maddy Smyth.

After Wietrzykowski's team-high 12th kill of the match tied it, Notre Dame took its final lead (24-23) on a Payton Bowyer kill. But two straight Eagles attacks went long, and Kowalski sealed things with her 11th kill of the match.

"I think our first game was a little better than our second and third," Irish coach Melissa Belcher said. "The first one we executed exactly what we wanted to do. We got our middle offense running, and we really spread the ball around well.

"After that our passing wasn't very good. We had to go outside a lot and they were blocking. We need to get our middle offense running again. But our serve was very good tonight."

Jacobs, Tiffani Hobbs and Mikenzie Tschantz each added five kills for the Irish. Morgan Fioritto topped Notre dame with 12 kills, and Bowyer added seven for the Eagles.

"Our playmakers didn't rise to the occasion like I was hoping they would," Notre dame coach Jeff Pitzen said. "We had a lot of errors from our big guns and we made a lot of mistakes.

"It's disappointing because they can play better than that. It seems like they weren't focused."

The second semifinal generated no such drama as St. Ursula grabbed early leads in each game and never trailed throughout.

Cassidy Croci topped the balanced Arrows with 10 kills, Erin Williams had seven, Madison Strall and Katie McKernan added six apiece, and Maddie Burnham had four.

Saturday's rematch promises to be a challenge for the Arrows, who have now won 44 consecutive matches dating back to last season.

The TRAC champions had their hands full in a Sept. 8 conference meeting at home against Central. St. Ursula rallied from a 2-1 deficit in games to escape with a 25-18, 23-25, 13-25, 25-17, 15-9 victory and avoid the upset.

"We're trying to put some new stuff into our offense, so the kids have a fresh wrinkle," St. Ursula coach John Buck said about the Arrows' semifinal effort. "We're trying to work on flow of the game, moving and communicating. And, we're working on serving tougher. That's something we've been trying to focus on."

Buck realizes Central will make the Arrows earn a 45th straight win and 11th district title since 2000.

"We're looking forward to the next step," he said. "It's one match at a time. We have three days to get ready for Central. They played a very nice match and they're a formidable team. We're going to have to bring our A-game, no doubt about it."

Contact Steve Junga at: sjunga@theblade.com, or 419-724-6461.