District Volleyball: Cardington tops Pleasant for second title
MOUNT VERNON — After watching Pleasant rally to a 25-23 first-set victory Saturday night, the Pirates didn't panic. Just the opposite, as it turned out.
"I don’t think anyone was nervous at all," Cardington All-Ohio outside hitter Audrey Brininger said. "Ryan (Treese, head coach) wasn’t nervous. We weren’t nervous. It was kind of a settling-in thing. They had a lot of energy. We made a lot of little mistakes, so we were like fix the little mistakes and we’re fine."
The Pirates won the next three sets to claim their second-ever Division III district championship in volleyball and their second in a row. Second-seeded Cardington beat the No. 7 seed Spartans 23-25, 25-17, 25-13, 25-21 to earn a trip back to the Kettering Fairmont regional.
Cardington (22-3) will play Versailles — the third-ranked team in the last state coaches poll in Division III — Thursday at 6 p.m.
"It’s pretty cool. We knew we were supposed to be here this year. All we need to do is play like we can," Brininger said.
According to Treese, everything they've done this season, especially the last couple of weeks, has been to get to Saturday night's moment of truth and beyond.
"These last two weeks I’ve been really, really hard on them," he said. "We had two scrimmages that we’d never done before for the purpose of getting back to regionals. Just getting there isn’t good enough this year. We worked really, really hard. I don’t care who you are playing in the tournament, it’s hard to get back there again year after year after year."
The Pirates were largely in control of the match after the first set., pulling away in the back half of the second set, dominating the third set and taking the lead midway through the fourth set.
"Don’t take any credit away from Pleasant. They played a helluva game. They scrapped and did everything they had to do to make it hard for us to get there," Treese said.
Indeed, the Spartans (13-12) tried to make it hard on the Pirates, especially in the fourth set where they led 13-11 and later cut the Cardington lead to 21-20.
"We’ve come from behind so many times this year that we knew we could do it," Pleasant coach Kory Ute said. "When we come in with a passion and with the energy that we had, we do well. For some reason, that second game we didn’t get off to a good start and then we just couldn’t get our footing under us.
"It was do or die time."
With seniors like Kenna Ambrose, Maddie Aurigemma, Audrey James and Lexi Olt, Ute wasn't surprised by how her squad responded by pushing Cardington on Saturday.
"Those seniors have put their heart and soul into this team, trying to rebuild what’s going on at Pleasant and trying to make sure they leave a legacy for the next ones," Ute said. "They’re going to be really hard to replace because they were so team-minded and win-minded and making sure that we are a family. That part hurts. I’m so stinking proud of everything they’ve done.
"We said early on that we thought we would surprise people. We’re here. We surprised a lot of people by being here. It was a great season and a great run and hopefully we can come back here next year."
Cardington closed it out with a kill by Brininger, a block by Alexis Crone, a Pleasant hitting error and another Brininger kill.
"The main word we’ve been talking about is focus," Treese said. "We talked about it on Thursday. Seven seniors and one junior and they’ve all been through 100-plus games and have been here four times. We have to focus no matter what’s going on."
That's why the Pirates didn't resort to panic at the first since of adversity on Saturday night.
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Bellaire eliminates Northmor from football playoffs
BELLAIRE — The Big Reds knocked out the Marion area's final high school football team when it beat Northmor 54-27 Saturday afternoon in a Division VI, Region 23 playoff opener.
Bellaire never trailed in the game, leading 28-14 at halftime.
The Big Reds (7-4), seeded No. 3, totaled 496 yards with 195 in the air and 301 on the ground, rolling up 33 first downs. Bellair turned it over once and was penalized 13 times for 140 yards.
For the 14th-seeded Golden Knights (5-6), the squad had 349 total yards, 127 passing yards, 222 rushing yards and 18 first downs. Northmor turned it over twice and was flagged 13 times for 165 yards.
Maxton Lower finished with 222 running yards on 22 carries, scoring two touchdowns. A.J. Bower was 8 of 26 passing, throwing two TDs and two interceptions. Bo Landin made both TD catches and ended with four receptions for 103 yards. Hunter Fulk picked off a pass.
This article originally appeared on Marion Star: District Volleyball: Cardington tops Pleasant for second title
