Mentor Lake Catholic turns back Quakers

By Tom Williams

Salem took the Cougars to four games before bowing in the Div. II regional semifinal.

STOW — One of the Salem High volleyball team’s top goals this season was to return to state despite the graduation of several key players from last year’s squad.

“A lot of people had doubts about us at the beginning,” senior Alli Ward said. “We proved them wrong [but] obviously we wanted to go further.”

Wednesday at Stow-Munroe Falls High School, the state-ranked Quakers, the All-American Conference Red Tier champions, were ousted by Mentor Lake Catholic in four games in the Division II regional semifinals. The Cougars won by scores of 25-13, 24-26, 25-15 and 25-18.

“Just getting here showed everybody we’re a strong team even though we lost some of our key players,” said Ward who made seven kills and two blocks. “I think we still did well. I had a fun time.”

Quakers coach Don Conser, who has twice guided Salem (24-3) to state competition, said he expects to return for one last season.

“When Amy Scullion graduates, I think I will, too,” Conser said. “She has one more year before graduating.”

Scullion, Salem’s ace junior, made 23 kills and four blocks.

“It was a great season,” Scullion said. “The seniors [Ward, Jessie Dillon and Brianne Wagner] showed some great leadership. It’s definitely a bummer that we couldn’t pull it out tonight but even in the loss we stayed together as a team. I wish we could have pulled off the win for the seniors because they’ve given us so much.”

The Cougars (21-4) won last week’s Jefferson district by ousting Hubbard in five games.

Conser said the Cougars didn’t show any surprises.

“That’s basically what I expected,” said Conser who scouted the win over Hubbard.

“Their setter [Ashley Herzberg] was called about eight times for the deep-dish set,” Conser said of last week’s match. “She was not called once tonight. It makes a big difference.”

Conser explained the deep-dish as “where the setter gets the ball up here and brings it down and throws it back up. Their setter deep-dished all night.”

The Cougars will meet Parma Padua (23-3) in Saturday’s regional final. Those teams split during the regular season, each winning on the other’s home court.

Wednesday the Quakers jumped ahead 3-0 on Dana Ackerman’s first serves, then struggled. Wagner’s three points in the second rotation were their only serving points in the 25-13 loss.

“We gave them way too many easy passes over the net,” Conser said. “They are a very good digging team.”

Led by Scullion’s booming hits, Salem rallied from a 20-15 deficit in the second game. Scullion served five straight points to tie the game the Quakers won 26-24.

But the Quakers were soon flat again, trailing 16-6. In the final match, the Quakers didn’t score a serving point after a 17-17 tie.

“They are a great team,” Scullion said. “They put us in a lot of situations that we didn’t want to be in. They were relentless.”

Mariah Halleck finished with 12 assists, two aces, three kills and a block. Taylor Sauerwein made 15 assists.

Lake Catholic coach Rich Severino said his team won despite not being in top form.

“That’s what good teams do, win somehow even when they don’t have their ‘A’ game,” said Severino, who said playing against Scullion was a great test. “Any time you go against a kid like Amy, who is one of the top players in Ohio it helps you. You don’t see too many kids like that.

“We thought their team was one-dimensional so we figured that we could let her get her [numbers] and just stop everybody else. You’re not going to stop a kid like that, but if you can stop everyone else around her, that’s how you beat that team.”

williams@vindy.com