SHADYSIDE — On the wall inside Shadyside High’s Tiger Den, there’s a newly-erected banner listing all of the school’s OVAC championships.

There’s a section for volleyball, but it’s blank. That could change Saturday at Union Local High School’s “Hangar.”

The Lady Tigers will play for their first conference championship at 5:30 p.m. after disposing of Steubenville Catholic in straight sets — 25-16, 25-17, 25-20 — in the first Class 2A semifinal on Tuesday evening.

Shadyside, the No. 1 seed, will battle No. 3 seed Southern. The Indians, the defending 2A champs, dispatched No. 2 seed River in five sets.

“We had three days of hard practices and they came out ready and showed it on the court,” LT’s head coach Cindy Archer said following the school’s first OVAC tournament triumph.

Madison Davis scored 13

points and had 32 assists in

a match in which Shadyside

came out focused from the

start.

The LTs scored the

night’s first 11 points and

never looked back.

“That was very important,”

Archer said. “I never

saw the girls get down at

all.”

Shadyside has taken tremendous

strides each year

of the program’s short existence,

which a new milestone

reached each season.

Archer said after missing

the OVAC finals last year,

getting there was a goal in

2018.

And once that was

achieved, she said her team

didn’t just want to stand pat,

it wanted to go for the gold.

Now, it will have the opportunity.

“I try to have a disciplined

team,” she said. “We’re not

messing around a lot. It’s

business all the time. I like

that.”

Shadyside also built leads

of 13-3 and 8-3 in the second

and third sets, only to

watch the Crusaders (11-8)

climb back. But, in the end,

the LTs experience and team

play proved too much.

“Shadyside took a step up

on us and we could never

really get into the match,”

Steubenville Catholic assistant

coach Monica Fischer

said. “Shadyside moves the

ball around well. They were

just doing that consistently

well and hitting everything.

We had a hard time adjusting

to it.”

Like the rest of this season,

Shadyside (20-1) had

a plethora of players get into

the act. Jillian Joseph had

six points, eight kills and

10 digs, while Sarah Teasdale

added eight kills and 10

digs, and Riley Brown and

Haleigh Osman had seven

kills and 12 digs, respectively.

“They were ready,” Archer

said.

“We played well in our

practices leading up to this.

We didn’t want it to go to a

fourth set.

Emma Borden recorded

six kills for the Crusaders.

“Steubenville Catholic is

a very good team. They gave

us a great match.”