BUCYRUS — The sectional semifinal volleyball match between Bucyrus and Upper Sandusky Monday happened to be the rubber match. Each team had defended home court via sweeps in the regular season.
The tournament game was similar with one adjustment — the visiting team won.
Upper Sandusky — the No. 10 seed — came to Alex Kish Memorial Gymnasium and defeated ninth seeded Bucyrus, 3-0, by scores of 25-21, 28-26, 25-19.
The Rams advance to play No. 1 Huron for in the sectional final on Thursday.
Both coaches pointed to the second set as the momentum changer in favor of the visitors.
“We were down, I believe, seven or eight points and came back to win that shows how much our girls wanted this win,” Rams coach Donielle Crall said. “And we would fight point for point for it.”
After dropping the first set by four points, Bucyrus (9-14) got out of the gate fast in the second set, building an early 9-2 lead. Though Upper Sandusky (8-15) chipped away, the Redmen still led at 16-11.
The Rams finally pulled even at 17-17. From that point, there were seven more ties until Upper Sandusky scored the final two points of the elongated set to win the elongated set, 28-26, to grab a 2-0 advantage.
“I just think we had a few bad calls against us (in the second set),” first-year Bucyrus coach Amber Christy said. “Everybody in the stands knew they were bad calls. I was kind of disappointed one of them wasn’t overturned. That was the momentum changer, two bad calls I think three points apart.”
Staring up from an 0-2 hole, Bucyrus scored the first point of the third set —as it had done in the first two sets — but could not maintain traction enough to secure a set.
The Redmen were still as within one, at 16-15, on a kill by Maddie Kimmel. But the Rams went on a 9-3 run from there to win the set and the match.
“It seems like this season we seem to get down in sets and then we want to fight back for it,” Crall said. “I’m proud that we don’t give up and we fight back for everything.”
“They didn’t step up and take it,” Christy said. “It seemed like half my girls were ready to play. The other half weren’t, and this is a team game. This is what I tell them all the time. Who is getting the ball, who is getting the kills — everybody should be happy.”
The veteran coach acknowledged that youth was a large part of her team’s undoing.
“With hitting and that, we were right there, neck-and-neck there (with Upper Sandusky),” Christy said. “We just made some unforced errors that come with a young team that’s just really learning how to play the game correctly.”
The Rams face the specter of playing No.1 seed Huron on its home court. But the coach is optimistic.
“I told the girls, it’s tournament time,” Crall said. “Anything is possible. We just have to play our game. Anything can happen.”
While disappointed in the loss and the season ending, Christy was able to reflect on the strides the Bucyrus volleyball program has made in her first year.
“They won one game in three years, and we won nine this season,” Christy said. “They hadn’t won a league game since 2017 and we won a league game. I was kind of hard on myself and someone said to me, ‘It’s a process.’”
Christy will say good-bye to four seniors in Kimmel, Kelcie Clayton, Macey Williams, and Cambria Wolff.
“We have four excellent juniors returning (Emma Tyrrell, Layla Ellis, Addy Ricker, and Lillian Neumann),” Christy said. “We lose four good seniors. Hopefully, we can rebuild and come back next year and compete better than we did this year.”