In a match-up of in-town Alexandria rivals, Bishop Brossart outlasted Campbell County in a five-game thriller in the 37th District semifinals at Scott in Taylor Mill.
The Mustangs (23-13) beat the Camels (10-16) in a 3-2 score to advance to the 10th Region tournament for the first time since 2018.
The 23 wins are the most in the five-season tenure of head coach Bree Velasquez. Brossart will play host Scott for the district championship Thursday at 6 p.m.
“That was a good time to play a great game,” Velasquez said. “I’m so proud of the girls. We’ve been saying all along when we get into rhythm, we’re tough.”
Campbell County won the regular season meeting Sept. 29 at Brossart in five.
Bishop Brossart won the first two games by 25-18 and 25-20 scores. After pulling off a 30-28 win in the third game, Campbell County then forced a fifth and decisive fifth game by winning the fourth game, 25-19.
“They fought really hard. But at the end of the day, Bishop Brossart put more points on the board,” said Jessica Ginter, Campbell County head coach. “That’s how it goes. We talk about coming out of the gate and making sure we don’t put ourselves in a hole. That was a tough lesson to learn. But you can’t win them all. It’s part of life. The girls know that.”
The Mustangs had the usual consistent play from their main three players. Junior libero Maddie Kremer dug up 34 balls and senior setter Savannah Seiter had 55 assists. Sophomore 6-foot-3-inch middle blocker Corrine Blackburn put down 21 kills to go with three solo and four combined blocks.
“Honestly, the only thing that kept me going was to keep my cool,” Seiter said. “When I get frazzled, it just turns into something not good. Thus, our team stayed cool so we could do our thing and win this game.”
The Mustangs displayed balance offensively in one of their best games of the season. They had 62 kills, 13 blocks, 60 assists, 99 digs and three aces.
A number of Brossart players kept balls alive. Seiter had 20 digs with senior defensive specialist Ava Thomas digging up 15 and junior defensive specialist Celia Phirman recording 10 digs.
Two outside hitters, sophomore Kate Neltner and junior Kayla Hesse, gave Brossart balance with 18 and 14 kills respectively. Neltner added four blocks and 13 digs. Junior middle blocker Payton Parker added five kills and two assisted blocks.
“I think this is really huge for us,” Neltner said. “We wanted it so bad. The hits from the pins were there. We could hit through the holes. Our blocks were there on the pins. They did hurt us a couple times. But we worked harder. More importantly, we wanted this for Coach (Velasquez) because she wanted it, too.”
Campbell County unofficially had 54 kills, 50 assists, seven blocks and four aces. The Camels knew they had to get their two 6-foot-even middle blockers in Lexi Scharold and Emma Manser a heavy amount of touches to win the game. They finished with 23 kills each. Manser had four blocks.
Campbell County used two setters in junior Ava Crowl and freshman Hope Hamilton. Crowl had 29 assists and Hamilton contributed 17.
Bishop Brossart came out firing in the first game building a 12-6 lead. But Campbell County came back to trim the margin to 12-10 forcing a Mustang time-out. Blackburn landed a kill to finish the first game.
“I think we did a really good job of staying in system once the ball came over instead of not getting it to the setter so our setter could convert that to our offense to get kills,” Blackburn said. “I told my teammates (before the fifth game) in the huddle we need to shut the door on them. We let them back in it. But we had to close the door and not let them get it. That’s my mentality.”
Brossart then came out scoring the first four points of the second game building an 11-2 lead. The Mustangs led 24-15 before the Camels ran off five straight concluding with a Manser kill. But Hesse finished the game with a kill for Brossart.
The third game saw senior hitter Bailey Beiting land a kill to put the Camels up 8-5. But the Mustangs rallied and took a 25-24 lead after a Neltner kill. But Camel sophomore A lon McIntyre landed a kill to tie the game making it to back-and-forth until two Manser kills forced the fourth game.
Campbell County led most of the fourth game building an 11-6 lead. Brossart cut the lead to 17-16. A Manser block gave the Camels a 24-18 advantage before a Hesse kill trimmed it to 24-19. Campbell County earned the final point of the game when Brossart made a bad pass.
With momentum not on its side, Brossart scored the fifth game’s first four points on Neltner and Blackburn kills to go with two Camel hitting errors. Three straight errors cut the Brossart lead to 6-5 forcing a Mustangs time-out.
Velasquez asked the players how much they wanted it during that time-out. They responded with a Hesse kill.
The game went back-and-forth before Neltner had a kill and Parker a block to put Brossart up 13-10 forcing a Camels time-out. Scharold responded with a kill for Campbell County before a long serve put Brossart up 14-11. Manser extended the game with a kill before Blackburn ended it with a kill.
The Camels did have their struggles this year with their third head coach in three years. But the Camels only graduate two seniors in Beiting and defensive specialist Ashlyn Niemeier.
“We definitely had a lot of learning curves this season,” Ginter said. “We had a lot of stuff that popped up that we weren’t expecting. As the new coach in a new position at a new school, it’s hard. We faced certain challenges. But like we’ve told the girls, you have to be resilient so we’ve tried to embody that as coaches pushing through the tough losses, hard practices and the things that get in your way to just try to reach your goals at the end of the season.”
The teams also met twice in the Cake Classic splitting those games. Brossart beat Campbell County, 2-1 in the semifinals before losing to host Highlands in the title game Sept. 24.
Scott 3, Calvary Christian 0
The host Eagles (25-11) soundly won the first two over the Cougars (15-13) from just down the road by 25-9, 25-10, and 25-17.
Scott is back in the region tournament for the fourth straight season. The Eagles last won the district tournament championship in 2020.
“(Calvary) never gave up. (The Cougars) are a good little team,” said Andrea Sullivan, Scott head coach. “We knew they were going to come out very well. They’re a scrappy team. They’re a really good serving team. We knew it wouldn’t be an easy match the whole way through so I’m not surprised they game out the third and made it a game with us. I think they’re very well-coached. We got in a funk for a little bit and we came out of it so that was a good thing.”
Scott had 10 aces, 33 kills, five blocks, 31 assists and 31 digs in the win. Senior hitter Makaylah Mitchell had nine kills, three aces and two blocks in the win with freshman hitter Milyn Minor tallying 13 kills. Senior setter Audrey Griffin had 28 assists and junior Brooke Balsley had two blocks.
“I think aggressive serving definitely helped us with making it hard for the ball to return over (the net),” Balsley said. “We worked on hitting certain shots in practice and I think that helped a lot. Energy was (also) a big part of it.
Scott and Brossart last met for the district tournament championship in 2015. That came during Scott’s run of four consecutive 10th Region titles.