CLAYTON – For a fourth consecutive year the Versailles volleyball team won an Ohio High School Athletic Association district tournament championship by sweeping Badin on Saturday at Northmont.
While her team won the match 25-10, 25-16, 25-18, Versailles coach Kenzie Bruggeman thought the Lady Tigers should have played better in the second and third sets after starting the match strong.
“I liked what I saw,” Bruggeman said of Versailles’ 25-10 win in the first set. “That’s what I want with getting to five first and then getting to 10. We did a really nice job with that, but then I’ll tell you what it fell off at the end of the first game and we just didn’t get that fire and intensity back the rest of the game so that’s a little disappointing to me.”
Versailles started the match with a run of 10 consecutive points to take a 10-1 lead on Badin. The Tigers led by at least eight points the rest of the opening set en route to their 25-10 victory.
The second set was more of a battle. From an 8-7 lead Versailles scored the next six points to go up 14-7, but Badin fought back to cut the Tiger lead to 15-13. Versailles was able to hold off Badin and win 25-16 to go up two games to none in the best-of-five match.
The third set was like the second with the score tied 7-7 early on. Versailles built a lead at 15-11, but Badin started to make a comeback and cut the lead to 17-15, prompting Versailles to use its first timeout of the evening. After the break Versailles rebounded and won 25-18 to finish off the sweep.
“I think that’s good that we can at least push past it enough to win the game, but like I said I really don’t want us putting ourselves in that situation,” Bruggeman said. “I would rather have more of what the first game was and getting to those little chunks of five sooner. I don’t like the back-and-forth stuff. But, yeah, we came out with the win so I’m happy.”
Elizabeth Ording led Versailles with 17 kills in the match. Kami Ording and Mallory Marshal both had five while Taylor Tyo, Lindsey Winner and Danielle Winner had four kills each.
“That’s what we need to continue to do, really spread out the offense and make sure that everybody is an offensive threat so that their block doesn’t know where to go,” Bruggeman said.
Danielle Winner had a team-high five blocks while Elizabeth Ording and Lindsey Winner both had three. Kami McEldowney, Kami Ording and Ellen Peters each had two aces.
McEldowney led the Tigers with 18 digs, and Kami Ording and Peters both added seven. Peters had a team-leading 26 assists, and Bailey Huffman had nine.
Versailles now advances to play in the regional semifinals against Miami East at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Fairmont’s Trent Arena in Kettering.
