Sophomore Corrine Blackburn rose high into the air and tipped the ball almost straight down in-bounds on the other side of the court setting off a deserved celebration.
The Bishop Brossart students rushed the court while fifth-year Mustangs head volleyball coach Bree Velasquez embraced assistant Sydney Bragg. The Mustangs (24-13 overall) earned the first district tournament championship in school history beating the host Scott Eagles (25-12) in the 37th District title game 3-2 (25-21, 17-25, 19-25, 25-21, 15-12).
Brossart earned the right to play host to the 10th Region Tournament as a result of the win. Brossart will play 38th District runner-up Pendleton County (22-7) on Monday at 5:30 p.m. and Scott will play 38th District champion Harrison County (26-10) at the same time Tuesday. The semifinals are Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. with the championship game taking place at 6 p.m. Thursday.
“This is everything that we have been talking about since day one,” Velasquez said. “It was one of those things where we saw the potential in them when they came into pre-season and I don’t know if they didn’t see it in themselves. But everything clicked. Plays that we’ve never made before this year, we were making. Our offense was so strong. The chemistry and everything was there.”
After celebrating on the court, the Brossart players quickly ran over to their injured senior setter Savannah Seiter and embraced her. Seiter had to leave in the third game ultimately putting her left leg up on a chair and icing down her left ankle.
The Mustangs rallied around her, especially eighth grade setter Aubrey Rebholz. Seiter had 20 assists unofficially before coming out and Rebholz finished with 13 of Brossart’s other 14 assists. Rebholz had 197 assists entering the game stepping in for the injured Seiter during the regular season.
“I feel like we already knew the types of sets we could run and connect easily so we ran a lot of them,” Rebholz said. “I feel like that really brought us to the win. Our confidence got higher (as the game progressed).”
Brossart unofficially finished with 46 kills, 24 digs, eight aces and eight blocks. After the first game, the Mustangs displayed the same type of balance shown in the district semifinal win over Campbell County on Tuesday. Junior libero Maddie Kremer led the way on the first touches recording 11 digs.
“It was pretty hard in the beginning. We were a little rough because Rebholz had a rough time communicating and getting her hands ready,” Kremer said about the plays after Seiter left the game. “But after five points, we were perfectly on. We were back to better.”
Then the Mustangs found their power hitters. The 6-foot-3-inch middle blocker Blackburn had 18 kills and four blocks with junior middle blocker Payton Parker contributing nine kills and two blocks. Sophomore opposite hitter Kate Neltner and junior outside hitter Kayla Hesse had good games with eight and five kills respectively. Blackburn, Kremer and Neltner made the all-tournament team.
“It was a good feeling,” Parker said of putting touches on the Scott hits. “It was nice to at least slow it down for my defenders. I feel like we have so much cohesion with the team and we just work naturally together.”
Scott unofficially had 44 kills, 37 assists, 33 digs, nine aces and three blocks. Senior hitter Makaylah Mitchell had 13 kills, eight digs and three blocks and senior libero Laine Morman had nine digs to make the all-tournament team.
Scott’s tallest player is 5-10 making it difficult to go against Blackburn. Freshman all-around Milyn Minor had 11 kills and four digs with junior hitter Brooke Balsley recording six kills. Sophomore defensive specialist Elise Manhardt added nine digs. Senior setter Audrey Griffin put up another valiant effort with 36 assists and three aces.
“It’s hard, especially when they get in system,” said Andrea Sullivan, Scott head coach. “We didn’t do a very good job passing the ball. We missed a lot of serves so I think hat’s off to Brossart. They definitely deserved to win more than we did. We just didn’t execute.”
The Mustangs trailed 4-0 and 11-2 to start the match prompting Velasquez to call time-outs at those points in the game. She challenged the Mustangs to quit beating themselves. They responded coming back to make it a game tying it 14-14 after a Neltner kill and Rebholz ace.
But Scott responded with six in a row on two Minor kills and a Manhardt ace. Brossart scored three in a row after a Balsley kill gave the Eagles a 24-18 lead. The Eagles won the first game after Brossart served one wide.
The Mustange led the second game 5-1 to start before the Eagles took a 6-5 lead on a Balsley ace. Brossart led 11-10 before going on a 5-0 run that concluded with a Kremer ace. The Eagles trimmed the lead to three before winning it on a Scott hitting error.
Minor opened the third game with a kill. But a Parker kill then Kremer ace gave the Mustangs the lead for good in that game. The Mustangs led by as much as eight at 19-11 before closing it out on two Scott hitting errors.
“Minus the first 12, 13 points of that first game, we found our consistency and it was awesome,” Velasquez said. “Watching them come back in the first game and getting it so close was awesome to see that grind. I feel that our team hasn’t shown that fight, that urge to leave it all out there. This is the best time to come together and do all those things.”
Scott came out in the fourth game scoring the first five points. Balsley had a kill and block and Manhardt had two aces with Minor recording a kill off a Brossart block attempt and out of bounds.
But the Mustangs again fought their way back. They used a 9-0 run to turn a 12-8 deficit into a 17-12 lead. Neltner had three aces during that run.
Scott then scored three in a row to trim the margin to 19-18 off two Griffin aces. Parker gave Brossart a 21-20 lead before the Eagles scored five straight to force a fifth game. Morman had two aces during that run.
“We knew it would be a tough game and we talked about how it was going to be a battle,” Sullivan said. “Every point we had to fight for and they did a great job picking up the balls we were sending over. Corrine is tough to block. Their attackers were swinging off our blockers some and we struggled with those balls. We just didn’t make the plays when we needed to.”
Blackburn had a block to give Brossart a 4-1 lead forcing a Scott time-out. Then Scott trimmed the lead to 6-5 prompting Velasquez to call a time-out.
The Eagles came within one twice after that point. Brossart led 14-10 before Scott scored two in a row with Mitchell landing a block and Velasquez used the last Brossart time-out. Kremer made a nice serve-receive pass off a Minor serve to Rebholz, who set up Blackburn to end the game.
Scott won the regular season game Sept. 21 in Alexandria, 3-0 (25-23, 25-23, 25-21). The Eagles hoped to win the district championship for the first time in two years. Scott and Campbell County have both won it five times since the current format formed in 2012.
Volleyball
35th District Championship at Holmes
Notre Dame 3, Holy Cross 0
The Pandas (27-5 overall) took down the Indians (29-8) for another district championship.
Notre Dame had 41 kills, 36 assists, 59 digs and seven aces in the win. Senior outside hitter Sydney Nolan had 18 kills with sophomore setter Lauren Ott and freshman setter Lizzy Larkins tallying 17 assists each. Sophomore middle blocker Ella Goetz had four aces with senior libero Kamden Schrand digging up 22 balls.
Holy Cross had 31 kills, 28 assists all from senior setter Maya Hunt, five aces and 40 digs. Junior middle blocker Julia Hunt had 19 kills, three aces and 10 digs. Senior Rylee Hood added nine kills with senior libero Natalie Bessler digging up 11 balls. Maya Hunt added two aces.
The 9th Region Tournament starts Monday at Ryle with the draw taking place Saturday morning. Notre Dame takes on Newport Central Catholic, Dixie Heights or Conner. Holy Cross takes on Highlands, Ryle or St. Henry.
Girls Soccer
State Quarterfinals
Lexington Catholic 3, Bishop Brossart 0
The Mustangs (14-9-4) put up a fight against the host Knights (26-1). But after winning the first state tournament game in program history on Tuesday, Brossart could not stop LexCath’s 26-game winning streak.
The big and physical Knights put up 14 shots to six for the Mustangs. LexCath led 1-0 at halftime.
The Mustangs graduate seven seniors from the team. They are goalkeeper Lauren Gooderson, midfielders Claire Hummel, Ella Machenheimer, Jill Planeaux, forward/midfielder Katelynn Kremer, defender Brooke Shewmaker and defender/midfielder Hannah Kramer.
Football
Beechwood 57, Newport 0
The Tigers (8-1, 3-0 district) rolled to a Class 2A, District 6 win over the visiting Newport Wildcats (3-7, 0-3). This marked the third shut-out of the season for the Tigers.
Beechwood plays Newport Central Catholic (8-1) at Covington Catholic on Oct. 28 at 7 p.m. Newport had its bye week before entering the Class 2A playoffs.
Newport Central Catholic 1, Bellevue 0 (forfeit)
The Thoroughbreds (8-1, 3-0 district) took the win after not being able to find an opponent to replace Bellevue (0-9, 0-3) on the schedule. The Tigers decided to call off the rest of the season as a result of only having 15 healthy players following the 46-0 loss at home to Dayton on Oct. 7.
NewCath concludes the regular season at CovCath on Oct. 28 against Beechwood (8-1) at 7:30 p.m.
