Highland junior Makaylee Merckling prepares to serve the ball in her team’s regional semifinal match with Shelby on Thursday.
Rob Hamilton | Morrow County Sentinel
Highland showed a lot of resilience in their Division IV volleyball regional semifinal against Shelby Thursday, but the Scots were unable to overcome an injury and the Whippets in falling in five sets.
In their 25-21, 25-20, 22-25, 12-25, 13-15 loss, Highland lost the services of senior All-Ohioan Kameron Stover late in the third set when she seemed to re-aggravate the foot injury that cost her the final few matches of the regular season and the team’s opening-round playoff contest against Horizon Science Academy.
“She ended up with a knot on the side of her foot and that’s what happened when we were at Clear Fork,” said head coach Rob Terrill. “She would certainly have been out there if she could have at all possibly could. I’m so proud of all the girls and Kammy told them that in there — the way they stepped up in her absence and fought to the very end. Probably not a whole lot of people thought we were going to hang in there and be up 13-11 in that fifth set and go right to the very end.”
When Stover went down, the Scots were up 2-0 in the match, but trailed 20-17 in the third set to a Whippet team looking to keep its season alive. Highland was able to respond to the loss of one of their senior leaders, though, getting five straight points from Makaylee Merckling to surge in front 22-20. Shelby would score on defense to get the ball back, though, and then got four straight points by Eve Schwembly to pick up the set.
The Whippets would lead the entire way in a fourth set they would claim by a lopsided margin and looked to have Highland on the ropes. The Scots would battle back in the fourth set; however, and came very close to pulling off the win.
In the early going, Shelby looked like they would pull away for another easy win, as they jumped out to a 5-2 lead behind three points by Schwembly and led 9-5 a bit later on in the first-to-15 set.
Highland would fight their way back. Both Reagan Maibach and Larsen Terrill scored once to help the Scots get back to within a 10-9 score. Trailing 11-10, Merckling struck again with three straight points to make it a 13-11 score. Unfortunately for Highland, Shelby would stop the bleeding with a defensive score and then got three straight once again by Schwemley to close out the contest and end Highland’s season with a 20-6 record.
“I couldn’t be prouder of them,” said Rob Terrill after the match. “I told them, so much heart. In that fifth set, I kept waiting on that time out because I knew we had it in us to make a run yet and we did. We stuck with the game plan all night. We just played really hard.”
The coach added that being able to play the team that shared MOAC co-champion honors with his squad in that match just added to the atmosphere.
“Obviously, that’s an awesome team,” he said. “That’s such a unique situation in that you’re going to regionals against a team that not only we knew, but we split with during the season and were co-champions of the league with them. It went right down to the last point because, even with an injury, our girls really stepped up. So, so proud of them.”
Over the first two sets, the match was contested closely between two strong team, with Highland being just a little bit better.
Four points by Merckling staked Highland to an early 5-0 lead in the opening set. Thanks to two points each by Jossalyn Varney and Logan Bradley, the Scots led by as much as a 17-11 margin, but Shelby would battle back to get within two points at 19-17.
A pair of points by Maibach would give the Scots some breathing room, but Shelby would get close again at 23-21 before a defensive score and a point by Merckling gave Highland a 1-0 lead in the match.
Neither team could get an advantage for nearly all the second set. Shelby led in the early going, but three Mia Stanco points staked Highland to a 9-7 advantage. For most of the remainder of the set, the score would either be tied or the Scots would hold a slim lead until three straight Merckling points turned a 21-19 advantage into a 24-19 score in a game the Scots would claim to lead 2-0.
The third set would be just as closely contested. Two points each by Mylee Shackle and Baylie Hoffbauer helped Shelby turn a 4-4 tie into a 10-7 Whippet lead, but they would be unable to pull away from Highland. However, they would be able to close out the set and then also won the fourth and fifth to close out the match.
“I just set in there and told them you can be sad because it’s over, but you can’t be sad because of what we accomplished, you can’t be sad of how we played tonight, how we fought adversity all year long,” said Terrill. “Girls had to step up, even tonight in the middle of a game. ‘Okay, you’re in, you’re playing here, you’re playing there,’ and then we changed it. I’m just so proud of them.”
Stover finished with 38 kills in three sets. Larsen Terrill tallied 53 assists and four kills, while Maibach added 11 kills and Merckling contributed six aces and 28 digs. Bradley added four kills and Varney picked up three blocks.
After the match, Rob Terrill couldn’t say enough about how his team fought together after Stover went down, nearly winning both the third and fifth sets against a tough foe — noting that was a sign of strong leadership on the court from his program’s five seniors and nine letter-winners.
“They’re the first Highland class to have four district championships,” he said of his seniors — Terrill, Stover, Stanco, Bradley and Faith Gantz. “No other class in any program at Highland won four district championships. They represented the school well and had a lot of leadership. That’s what shows when you have adversity like that. The leadership has to step up and they did.”
Rob Hamilton can be reached at 419-946-3010, ext. 1807. Connect with him on Twitter at @SportsMCS
