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Springfield, Salem to meet in volleyball district final
Springfield,
Salem to meet
in Division III
By DAN HINER
Salem
With the match tied at two games apiece, Springfield beat Crestview 15-5 in the fifth set of a Division III district semifinal game at Salem High School on Wednesday night.
Springfield closed the game out with an error and three aces by Carly Stitzel.
The Tigers will play Salem in a district final at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Salem High School.
The Tigers (19-5) won the first game 25-22, but dropped the next two 25-22 and 25-15.
While most teams would have become stressed, the Tigers became more relaxed in the fourth game. Players were laughing and joking at the net. The casual mindset helped lead Springfield to a 25-18 win to force the fifth game.
“We’re a very close team,” Springfield senior Kaelen Yemma said. “We make jokes with each other at practice, but we know what we have to do. We know what we have to get done.”
Yemma set up quality passes all night, helping junior Lyndsey Smith to 18 kills and Jennie Stitzel to 11. Yemma finished with 39 assists. Smith also had seven blocks.
“It’s really hard when you have hitters that get all the accolades, but I tell you what, my back row and my defense gave [Yemma] something to set,” Springfield head coach Angela Jones said. “She has a range of hitters to choose from.
“We did a nice job of finding an open spot on the floor, the outsides hit down the line well when we needed to. We gave her something to work with and she lets her magic go.”
Emily Emch led Crestview with 17 kills, six blocks and an ace.
While Yemma was setting up her outside hitters, Salem’s Echo Mayer-Kutz and Caitlyn Marx were racking up kills in a sweep of Mineral Ridge in the other semifinal.
Marx finished with 10 kills and six blocks, and Mayer-Kutz had seven kills, two blocks and an ace for the Quakers (21-3).
The Rams kept the first game close, losing 25-19, but the Quakers won the final two games 25-7 and 25-11.
The slow start is nothing new to Salem head coach Sarah Hamilton. The Quakers have gotten into a bad habit of committing mental mistakes early in matches.
“In that first set we were giving them too many free points off our mistakes,” Hamilton said. “We’ve got to learn to start strong and stay strong. I think that’s our biggest thing because we’re our biggest competition every night.”
The Rams (18-6) had some mental mistakes of their own. Rams head coach Joey DeLisio said the team played a mistake-free first game, but the errors cost them in the second and third.
She considered the miscues part of the learning process. The Rams didn’t have a senior on the roster and have just three juniors.
“Salem played a great second and third game, but I also feel we didn’t play a game at all,” DeLisio said. “We gave them points on mental errors, on bad passing ... whatever it may have been. Obviously the first game was a totally different story, but I feel mentally we weren’t in the game those last two games.”
Saturday’s district final match won’t be the first meeting between the Tigers and Quakers this season. Salem beat Springfield in five sets Sept. 15 in New Middletown.