Karsyn Griffin may have not played a major part in Ryle’s trips to the region semis as a freshman and sophomore, but the junior made her mark on the region tournament on Sunday.
Griffin’s 13 kill, five-ace performance in the 9th Region volleyball tournament quarterfinals helped Ryle to a straight set victory, 3-0 (25-10, 25-16, 25-5) over Newport Central Catholic.
“We were really just focused on our game and not getting caught up on our opponent or the other side,” Griffin said.
Griffin and the Raiders dominated for the most part, racking up 36 kills to go with seven aces in the match.
Leading 8-5 in the first set, Ryle used a 12-0 run to break open the set.
The second set was the only one in question, NewCath getting within one at 15-14 after three straight Raider errors got them to that point. A timeout followed.
“Just told them to regroup, remember the gameplan,” Raiders coach Tasha Lovins said. “They pulled it back together and did a great job in doing that.”
Ryle closed out the set with a 10-2 run for a 2-0 lead.
The Raiders left no doubt in the third set as they scored the final 13 points of the match that included five Griffin aces.
“Hitting was really well, I felt like ball control was really good. Serving too,” Lovins said. “Karsyn alone, I don’t have the stats in front of me but she rounded off a lot of serves.”
The win gets Ryle into Tuesday’s semifinals against St. Henry back at Cooper High School at 6 p.m. The Crusaders defeated them three weeks ago to the day on Tuesday, 3-0 (25-8, 25-20, 25-19).
“We’re gonna regroup, see what we need to do and then hopefully go out and dominate,” Lovins said. “We know they’re strong. We know their strengths. They know our strengths or weaknesses. At the end of the day, I think it’s gonna be whoever makes the least amount of mistakes.”
NewCath’s season comes to a close at 17-19, the 17 wins the most since 2017.
“We made big strides the last couple of months and unfortunately we didn’t play like that today,” Thoroughbreds coach Angie Reckers said.
They closed out the season with seven straight wins before losses in the district championship to Highlands and then Ryle on Sunday. The 24 errors and four service errors committed in Sunday’s match were just too much to overcome.
“We’ve worked really hard all season on mental toughness and today did not show how far we’ve come because I think it was definitely more of a lack of mental toughness for us today,” Reckers said. “But I’m very glad of these girls. Our seniors showed a lot of leadership and were great role models. The juniors have definitely learned how to step up and lead because of them.”
NewCath will lose three seniors off this year’s roster.
