Local Sports

Beaver Local takes consolation

CALCUTTA -- Beaver Local came into Tuesday’s OVAC Class 5A semifinal as the top seed but it knew No. 4 seed John Marshall would present a challenge since the Beavers were one of the smaller schools in the conference’s top division.

The Monarchs overcame a rough start to pull off a 16-25, 25-19, 25-19, 23-25, 15-9 victory to earn a spot in Saturday’s final against No. 2 seed University from Morgantown.

University beat East Liverpool in straight sets in the other semifinal. Beaver Local (15-5) will travel to East Liverpool in the consolation final on Thursday for their third match of the season against the Potters.

John Marshall (20-13) was up 20-18 in the fourth set and the Beavers forced a fifth game with a late rally. But having done so, the Beavers expended a lot of adrenaline quickly found themselves in an 11-4 hole in the fifth set that they could not recover from.

“I feel like there were a lot of long rallies throughout the entire match and every time we got through one of those rallies all of the sudden we’d have a little fall right afterwards,” Beaver Local coach Sarah Lowe said. “Our consistency is something we worked on all year long and the sets we lost tonight we let them go on runs and that’s something we have to do a better job of.”

Beaver Local took advantage of most of the Monarchs mistakes in a rough patch for the visitors in a heavily one-sided first set, but the Monarch head coach Chelsea Eckleberry said that was something that often happens after a long bus ride -- this one being 90 minutes.

“I said forget about it and move on (after the first set),” Eckleberry said. “I have a lot of kids that get car sick and some of them were queasy.”

The Monarchs utilized their tall hitters effectively throughout. Senior Sarah Naome had 18 kills, while senior Gracen Chavanak added 10 kills. Junior middle hitter Paislee Babiczuk, the Monarch’s tallest hitter, had eight kills.

“You can definitely tell they are a much bigger school than us,” Lowe said. “They definitely had a lot of height but I feel like we had as many if not more touches and blocks on our side of the court. I feel like our players stepped up and played well at the net. We still had some balls hitting on the defensive side. We’ve got to be able to move the ball around a little better to score, but overall it was a good match by both teams.”

Class 5A spans 415 to 1,369 students of total boys and girls enrollment. Beaver Local is at 425 students while John Marshall is at 779.

Beaver Local was led by Lily Schrieber’s 15 kills and 14 digs. Addie Thurik added 11 kills 14 assists and 17 digs. Leah Schrieber had six kills and nine digs. McKinnley Ferry had two kills, three aces and 16 assists. Macie Bourne and Olivia Opalenik had four kills each. Libero Taylor Pease had three aces and 17 digs. Madison Poppelriter had three kills. Gianna Congrove had 17 digs.

John Marshall’s coach said she spent a lot of time studying the Beavers before the match.

“We went heavy on the film,” Eckleberry said. “My girls knew some spots to go at but Beaver adjusted and we had to adjust. I’m confident in my girls. We have eight seniors. Most of them are on the court and some of them are on the bench. They wanted this and were ready for it. They lost in the semifinals last year to Morgantown and our goal was to get to Saturday.”

University and John Marshall split during the regular season.

Beaver Local won the jayvee match, 25-23, 25-20. Makayla Jungfleish had eight kills for the winners. Maddie Smith added 11 assists. Daisy McKnight had six kills.

GAME NOTES

• The reason why East Liverpool and Beaver Local got bumped up into the largest class in the OVAC was the influx of Eastern Ohio Athletic Conference teams joining the OVAC in the last two years.

• University and John Marshall will play at 5 p.m. on Saturday at the ECO Center in St. Clairsville.