Buckeye Central spikers sweep Monroeville for district title

WILLARD — Six years ago Buckeye Central swept Norwalk St. Paul for a district volleyball championship. That pushed the Buckettes to a regional crown and an eventual appearance in the Division IV state final four in Dayton.

On Thursday night, Buckeye Central (18-7) won another district championship, defeating Monroeville 25-21, 25-22, 25-23.

The Buckettes advance to a regional semifinal in Strongsville at 6 p.m. Thursday against Columbia Station Columbia, which downed Elyria Open Door Christian 25-12, 19-25, 25-19, 25-20.

“I guess I’ll speak on behalf of the program, it means everything to us,” said Mia McDougal. “It’s such a big rivalry with Monroeville for the past how many years. They’ve given it to us year after year after year, and to be able to finally give it back to them is the best feeling in the world.”

Things started slowly for the Scarlet and Gray.

The Eagles took advantage of them being a little out of synch to stake an 8-3 lead. Alexa Adams’ block put Monroeville in the driver’s seat, 18-11.

But a pair of blocks by senior Mia McDougal and an ace by Kimmy Biglin gave BC an 18-15 lead as it clawed its way back to take the first set.

That rally energized the Buckettes and seemed to drain the Eagles somewhat as Buckeye Central stormed to an 11-0 lead to start the second set and never looked back.

“All season long we’ve had a bad habit of getting ourselves in spots like that. But I guess that helped us push through,” McDougal said.

Playing against a familiar program like Monroeville may or may not give a team an advantage.

“I think there’s good and bad to it. When you play teams you know, there’s nerves. They have the ability to change it up and anything can happen. There’s uncertainty with a new landscape. You don’t know what you’re working with,” the first team all Northern 10 Athletic Conference middle hitter said.

“You just go out there and play. I’m grateful to be on a district championship team finally, but I want to keep going.”

Monroeville (18-7) bows out after a strong season. Head coach Kendra Snook fielded a young team, starting four sophomores and one freshman.

“We were ready to win set one and had that big lead, and we let it slip away from us,” Snook said. “Buckeye started making some plays and we missed some huge serves at the end, a bunch in a row.

“In set two being down 11-0, we outplayed them the rest of the set. I was proud of how the kids fought and didn’t give up after that big deficit. In set three we had the lead there and couldn’t finish.”

Both teams made numerous diving saves to keep volleys alive in the second set. The Eagles rallied to make it 12-9 before Mia McDougal’s block put BC back in control. The two teams traded service errors before Biglin’s kill and serving ace made it 23-19.

“It’s been six years, but it feels longer than that,” Buckeye Central head coach Missy McDougal said. “We really felt like this was our year. Monroeville is a great team and put up a great fight.”

The third set saw the Eagles go ahead 5-1 before Buckeye tied it at 6-6. Maren McDougal slapped one over the net and Biglin added another point to push BC to a 14-12 advantage.

“We were able to finish. We talked about them all year. We preach taking it one game at a time, but we knew when we beat them earlier in the year it would only get tougher this time,” coach McDougal said.

“Kendra always has them playing great at the end of the year. But we kept fighting and pushing, knowing our end goal was to beat them.”

McDougal credited her three seniors — Mia McDougal, Biglin, and Ella Steele — with leading the way.

“I can’t imagine how many blocks Mia had tonight. I think she really affected their hitters. Kimmy had a couple big blocks there at the end. They provided us with leadership this year.”

Mia’s kill knotted the final set at 23 apiece before Buckeye prevailed. Steele made several strong digs throughout the match.

“We can go up there and compete in the regionals. We’re a young team and I don’t realize sometimes if they knew what a big game this was. It was huge,” McDougal said.

Buckeye Central unofficially had 14 aces.

“We had a few problems serving in the semifinal game, so I was glad we were able to come out serve well. I thought we did a good job staying away from their libero (senior Abbi Poths). She still got some touches. But we stayed aggressive,” McDougal said.

Sophomore Adrienne Jury was in the fourth grade when Buckeye Central made its last regional appearance.

“I knew that we’d definitely have to work for it. It’s not a given. All the time we spent practicing and preparing, I felt like we were just ready,” she said.

Falling behind early didn’t rattle Jury or her teammates.

“We just had to push, play together and clean up the little things. I’m so looking forward to playing next week.”

STATS: Alexa Adams had five blocks and Ady Adams six kills and five blocks for the Eagles. Poths had 21 digs to lead the team and Addison Lyons 18 and Addison Homan 13.

MOHAWK ADVANCES: Two N10 rivals squared off in a D-IV regional at Riverdale. Mohawk stayed unbeaten at 25-0 as the Warriors topped Carey 25-19, 25-21, 20-25, 25-23.

It marked head coach Eric Hoover’s 400th career victory. Mohawk advances to play Convoy Crestview at Elida next Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in a regional semifinal.