The Chagrin Valley Conference seems to have some of the best volleyball in Northeast, Ohio. Teams like the Berkshire Badgers or Cardinal Huskies, throw in the Crestwood Red Devils and Kirtland Hornets, the CVC is loaded with talent and records don’t matter when these teams play.
Match photos click here.
The Chagrin Valley Conference seems to have some of the best volleyball in Northeast, Ohio. Teams like the Berkshire Badgers or Cardinal Huskies, throw in the Crestwood Red Devils and Kirtland Hornets, the CVC is loaded with talent and records don’t matter when these teams play.
Entering the week, the Badgers hosted the Kirtland Hornets. A team that they lost to earlier in the season in five sets. An important game that would determine first-place in the Valley division. Then, they traveled to Middlefield to square off against the Huskies.
Joni Prots’ team got the week started with a win over the Hornets in four sets. But Thursday’s game was a much tougher task.
“It’s been a tough three week stretch,” Prots said. “We had three tough CVC matches and three busy weekends so the girls had to work hard to fight fatigue and we had to be careful in practices to work, as needed, but still give the girls recovery time.”
“We are really excited that we have won two big matches,” Dana Kellogg said. “Winning against Kirtland gave us momentum coming into Cardinal and we were really excited.”
Cardinal on the other hand, traveled to Mantua to take on the Red Devils where they were hoping to sweep long-time coach Wanda Hoffman, after they picked up a hard fought five-set win back on Sept. 12.
They were hoping to play spoiler against the Badgers and use their home-court advantage later that week. Tuesday’s contest resulted in the Huskies losing in four, but felt confident heading into Thursday’s match-up with the Badgers. “We were right in the middle of the league championship race with two weeks to go,” said Cardinal Coach Michael Chaffee. “We showed we can compete with everyone on our schedule, and we showed confidence in each other.”
The Huskies used a fast start and capitalized on the Badgers’ shaky start. Junior Ali Puruczky quickly got the Huskies on the board with a couple of kills on the night. She would use the entire floor and keep the Badgers’ defense on their heels with kills coming cross-court and down the line.
Junior middle blocker Jillian Smetana put together a strong run at the service line, recording back-to-back aces while she pulled her team within two points, trailing 17-15. After three straight kills for Puruczky and the Huskies, Coach Prots would burn her first timeout while her team trailed 20-16.
First set point would go to the Huskies after a service error would be recorded by the Badgers. It would however take two set points and Coach Chaffee would call his second timeout on the night after a Smetana kill and a hitting error from the Huskies. Cardinal would take set one, 25-22 after a service error recorded by the Badgers.
Sophomore Olivia Krebs would start the second set with a successful serve, but a double-contact violation whistled against senior setter Maddie Ehrhardt, the Badgers would jump
on the scoreboard first.
A block set up by junior Marissa Rish and closed by senior middle blocker, Kirsten Shaffer would help set the Badgers up for a 2-0 lead. The Huskies would finally get on the board after a hitting error from Smetana out of the back row. Another successful block from Rish and Shaffer stretched the lead to two.
Early in the second set, the Badgers’ setters Rish and Ava Chuha would get their middles involved, where Smetana and Shaffer started to get hot. The Huskies would be forced to take a timeout after another Shaffer kill out of the middle, where they trailed 14-10. Out of the timeout, Puruczky would record another kill down the line.
“Ali had a phenomenal night,” said Chaffee. “Her stats speak for themselves against the top team in the standings. We count on Ali a lot and she embraces that role as do all of our players. We are all looking at team success through individual success. For almost every one of her kills a teammate made a pass and another made the set. It is the absolute beauty of our sport.”
With a more balanced offensive attack, the Badgers took a commanding set two win, 25-19.
“The key was that we were more consistent and eliminated errors for a stretch long enough to come back and win,” Prots said. “Hopefully, it makes us more mentally tough when needed.”
With things tied up with one set apiece, the Huskies seemed to be playing their best when taking pride in their defense and playing off of the crowd.
“Some of the plays that stood out were phenomenal defensive plays by our back row. It was one of the best defensive efforts I have seen in my many years of coaching,” said Chaffee about his team.
Another fast start from the Badgers had them getting out to a 4-0 lead after multiple attack errors hurt the Huskies. Senior middle blocker Morgan Csontos finally got the Huskies on the board with a kill out of the middle. The Badgers returned the favor with a kill out of the middle from Smetana. She would win the point and the serve, recording another ace in the evening. The Badgers led 6-2 early in the third set.
Back-and-forth we would go in the third before the Huskies would reclaim the lead 9-8 off of an ace from Ehrhardt. A strong 6-2 run from the Huskies would pull them ahead 15-10 before the Badgers would call their first timeout in the third. Kills from sophomore Natalie Soltis and Csontos would put the Badgers on their heels late in the set.
With a talented lineup, Coach Prots felt like her team could play with a little bit more consistency down the stretch. With an experienced lineup and height advantage, the Badgers seem to be out of system much of the night.
“We need to work on being more consistent and staying aggressive in tough times.
Mental preparation is always top on my list of things to work on,” she said.
An ace from sophomore libero Delana Kellogg would give the Badgers the set, 28-26 and tie the contest at two sets apiece.
Setting up for a classic Berkshire and Cardinal showdown.
A starting kill off the top of the tape from Puruczky would get the Huskies rolling in set five. In their first eight points, the Huskies would be led behind Puruczky who recorded five kills.
Coach Prots would use her first timeout early, trailing 8-2. Out of the timeout came the Badgers.
A 4-0 run from the Badgers would pull them within two, after Shaffer picked up another kill. The Huskies would use their first timeout, wanting to calm the nerves and go over their strategy to close the set.
Berkshire would get an ace from Miller after the volleyball rolled off the top of the tape. A solo block from Krebs would tie the set up again at nine apiece.
March point number one would be set up for Smetana with a kill out of the middle. The Huskies would use their final timeout, trailing 14-11. The contest would end with a double-contact violation against the Huskies.
A mighty comeback from the Badgers where they learned a lot about themselves. “For starters, we wanted to come in here and really stay aggressive with our hitting, and we wanted to keep it away from Puruczky who serves as their main hitter,” said Kellogg after the contest.
Their libero picked up seven digs in the back row, with help from Miller who paced the defense with 31 digs, while Rish added 24. Hannah Hutchinson, Chuha, and sophomore Maddie Bower each added double-digit digs. The offense was set up by Rish with 23 assists, recording a
double-double for the Badgers. Chuha added 14. Behind Smetana who led the way with 17 kills was Shaffer and Hutchinson with 11 and 10 respectively.
Three Badgers also recorded three aces each on the night for a game-high 14 aces as a team. Shaffer added three blocks to her stat line.
“At the beginning of the game, we were playing really scattered and all over the place,” Kellogg said. “Then we started to fix that and stayed calm, taking a breather and our upperclassmen helped by keeping us more of a team because we were starting to split off into our own little groups. We tried to uplift each other and stay more as a team.”
“We were more cohesive and held the huddles a little bit longer and we really tried to talk about what was going wrong,” said Smetana.
The Huskies were led by Puruczky with 30 kills on 96 swings for the night, while Soltis added eight kills. Csontos and Krebs added five and three kills, respectively. Maddie Ehrhradt paced the Huskies to 33 assists while Soltis recorded a team-high 20 digs. Puruczky and senior defensive specialist Briana Lew each recorded 16 and 14 digs in the evening. Sophomore Adelyn Grant added 15 digs, two assists, and one kill. Csontos recorded a team-high three aces.
“I learned that collectively as a team we learned a lot. We have been working really hard to get to a point where we are playing quicker and reading and reacting, we refer to it as reading through the net,” said Chaffee after the game. “I think we showed great growth in that area against the Badgers.”
With the win, the Badgers improved to 16-3 overall and 7-1 in the conference. The Badgers look to clinch the CVC Valley with wins against Wickliffe and Beachwood this next week. While the Huskies fell to 9-9 overall and 4-4 in the conference.
“Our perseverance really showed in both matches. Against Kirtland, we dropped the third set, taking it to a fourth and after that we came back and dominated,” Smetana said.
