Isabel O’Brien thought it was worth the pain.
While O’Brien sat on a chair grimacing through leg cramps, the rest of Beechwood’s volleyball team celebrated Saturday’s 3-2 (25-21, 25-18, 17-25, 18-25, 15-9) win over four-time defending Ninth Region champion Notre Dame in the 17th annual Playing for a Purpose benefit game at Boone County High School.
“I’m just really cramping really bad about my legs, so it’s making it hard to walk,” O’Brien said.
While it wasn’t known if the Tigers have ever defeated the Pandas, one thing was certain: Beechwood (30-2) is a title contender.
“If we didn’t have a target on our back, we definitely have a target on our back now,” Beechwood coach Matt Long said.
O’Brien says accountability is the secret.
“You know, I think for us, we really are able to pin down what went wrong, and we’re able to learn and grow in that moment,” O’Brien said. “And I think that really helps us in tight matches like this.”
Beechwood’s losses have come to defending state champion Louisville Assumption and Cincinnati Seton. Long calls the Rockets and Saints the best teams in Kentucky and Ohio.
“I’ll take that,” Long said.
Long said Saturday’s strategy was to serve to Notre Dame senior Teagan Kondik as much as possible.
“We tried to serve over the setter some … just so (Kondik) had to pass and transition out to attack,” Long said. “We’re trying to make her do a little bit more than just go out and swing on the ball.”
O’Brien gave the Pandas problems for much of the first set. Her four kills from the back of the court helped Beechwood to a 14-4 lead.
Makayla Roose’s ace and an Ellie Osterkamp block pulled Notre Dame to within 16-8, but blocks from Teegan Becker and Macy Armstrong led a 6-3 Beechwood run. The Pandas later closed to 24-21, but O’Brien’s kill closed out the set.
The second set was largely a rerun of the first. O’Brien’s kill put the Tigers ahead, 16-8, a lead that expanded to 20-11 on Charlotte Conway’s kill.
After Armstrong opened the third set with a kill and Kennedy Sturgeon served an ace, Notre Dame (19-10) woke up. The Pandas eventually took an 18-12 lead on Kaia Tilden’s ace, and Roose’s two kills closed out the set.
“I think we just got a little too comfortable,” Becker said.
A pair of Tilden aces gave Notre Dame a 20-14 fourth-set lead, which Roose eventually finished with a block.
“We were making out little mistakes,” Armstrong said. “So we needed to come out stronger and pick up our game.”
The fifth set featured seven ties and six lead changes. What maybe nobody knew was O’Brien played through cramps most of the way.
O’Brien’s three kills and Conway’s one led the Tigers’ 6-0 run.
There was perhaps a greater purpose than volleyball. Saturday’s proceeds benefit the I Have Wings Breast Cancer Foundation, which helps women cope with their breast cancer journeys.
Becker and Notre Dame senior Claire Cardenas received $2,000 scholarships. Becker plans to study aeronautical engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Dayton Beach, Florida, and Cardenas plans to study business at the University of Kentucky.
Cardenas honored her grandmother, Jane Moore, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021. She said watching Moore lose her hair is a memory she replays every day.
“It was the hardest time of my life, I would say,” Cardenas says. “Because you grow up with your grandma with all this hair, and then it just starts falling out and you have to cut it and shave it. And then she looks like a completely different person.”
Becker honored her grandmother, Mary “Diane” Becker. She said baking cookies and working on her math homework are her favorite memories.
“I’m so blessed to be able to receive this so that I can truly prove to her that I’m trying to become a better person for her,” Teegan Becker said.
