Larsen Terrill sets the ball for Highland in their district final win over Heath Thursday, while teammate Addie Mullins moves towards the net.
Rob Hamilton | Morrow County Sentinel
The Highland volleyball team will return to the regional semifinals after defeating Heath in the Division IV district finals at Central Crossing Thursday by scores of 25-23, 26-24 and 25-18.
Even better: The team is starting to get healthy, as both of its All-Ohioans were on the court against the Bulldogs. For senior hitter Kameron Stover, it was her second game back; while senior setter Larsen Terrill made her return against Heath.
“We’ve had to persevere here,” said head coach Rob Terrill. “It’s been pretty tough for us, but it’s timed out well so far.”
Larsen Terrill was not even sure that she would be able to make it back to the court this season, as her first practice back was on Tuesday — just two days before the district finals.
“Good timing, I guess,” she said of making it back to play Heath. “I really thought I’d be out the rest of the year and I was like, ‘Oh, that really sucks’. I got back into practice a few days ago and I was like, if I can tough it out tonight and we win tonight and we go the rest of the way, I’ll help our team out.”
While the team struggled to put away Heath in each of the first two sets, they never trailed despite how close the scores were. Highland jumped out to a big lead in the first set, getting two points by Terrill and Stover and once each from Addie Mullins and Logan Bradley to hold a 9-4 advantage. A bit later, Reagan Maibach scored six in a row to make it a 17-8 margin.
However, Heath would battle back. getting as close as 20-18 before a defensive score and two from Stover’s serve pushed the Highland advantage back to a five-point margin. The Bulldogs would have one more run in them, turning a 24-20 Scot lead to a 24-23 score before a defensive score by the Scots got them out of the set with a 1-0 lead in the match.
The two teams played within a three-point margin for much of the second set. While Highland would threaten to pull away, getting their advantage up to 11-7 after two Terrill points and 14-10 after a score by Mia Stanco, the Bulldogs would keep the score close, even tying things up at 17-17.
From there, the teams were deadlocked the rest of the set. However, after two straight Heath points tied things up at 24, Highland was able to score defensively and then claim set point on the serving of Jossalyn Varney to take a 2-0 lead in the match.
“We struggled at times, but part of that is going to be getting everyone back into the routine,” said Rob Terrill. “You lean into your leadership there. We have five seniors that are leaders on and off the court and that certainly helps, but it’s good to have them out on the court, too.”
The third set would be far less suspenseful for the Highland faithful. Terrill opened it with two points and Kendal Kline added two more to stake the team to an early 6-3 lead. Stingy defense by the Scots allowed them to increase that advantage to a 14-10 margin before Stanco scored once and Stover added three more points to put the locals up 19-11 in a set they would win 25-18.
That moves Highland on to their third confrontation of the year with MOAC rival Shelby. Both teams claimed wins at home this season on their way to sharing the conference title.
While Rob Terrill felt his team could have played better against Heath, he was pleased with how they responded when necessary.
“We created our own issues,” he said. “We just had to get past that a little bit. They’ve done a real good job of, when I call time out, responding to that. Tonight, we knew what they (Heath) could do and we knew they were athletic, we knew they would keep balls alive. We just wanted to play volleyball, so we were just trying to push the ball deep in the court and make them get three contacts out of it. Heath played extremely well.”
After the game, Highland’s two senior All-Ohioans were happy with what their team has accomplished this year and both want to accomplish a lot more before the season is over.
“We have all evolved greatly and it feels great, especially this year,” said Stover. “The mindset is definitely to win (at regionals). We have been there before and we haven’t made it past semifinals, so we want to go all out on this one, especially since our five seniors are wonderful and so is the rest of the team.”
Larsen Terrill added: “We’ve had injuries this year. We’ve had people playing different positions. It really means a lot. I’m so proud of us that we’ve made it this far. There’s so much more to do, but I’m really proud of how far we’ve come already.”
Rob Hamilton can be reached at 419-946-3010, ext. 1807. Connect with him on Twitter at @SportsMCS
