Wheeling Central Slays Steubenville In Five Sets
Trending
STEUBENVILLE -- Coming into Tuesday’s volleyball match up between Wheeling Central and Big Red, both coaches expected a battle. A battle it was indeed.
After falling behind in the match with a tough 26-24 loss in a third set battle that was tied 15 times, the visiting Maroon Knights rallied and won the fourth and fifth sets for a come-from-behind five set victory inside the Crimson Center.
Big Red (6-4) won the first set and had a 2-1 lead in the match, but just could not seem to fully regain the momentum once the Maroon Knights (12-4) captured it early in the fourth set.
“It was a battle and we knew from watching film and how they are always are a solid team that it would be,” Big Red head coach Logan Colabella said. “We could not quite capitalize on the things we needed to capitalize on and were not quite able to finish things.”
It was the first time this season the Knights had gone to a fifth set, and coach Grace White was happy with the resolve her team showed in it.
“We were not playing like ourselves in the first set … we did not come out like ourselves and just weren’t operating like we have been, we tried a different line up in the next set, it worked and then it didn’t (in the third) so we went back and they figured it out,” White said. “They kept fighting and that’s a very big thing for us. It was making me nervous we’re halfway through September and had not been to a fifth set yet, it was good to see them get to a fifth set and win it.
“It’s going to make us better. I told them in the huddle (after the game) that I have the utmost confidence in them, even more so after this one, because they showed they can finish in a fifth set and battle back from being down.”
After some early back-and-forth in the opening set, a 6-0 Steubenville run put them on the path to a 25-20 victory to take the early advantage.
The visitors responded in the second set, using a 9-1 run to take control and even the match up with a 25-17 second set win.
The third set was perhaps as close as a set can be contested all the way through as the teams were deadlocked at 4-4, 5-5, 6-6, 9-9, 10-10, 14-14, 16-16, 17-17, 18-18, 21-21, 22-22, 23-23 and 24-24 and neither side held a lead of more than three points. Big Red, though, broke through with the final two points to take the lead in the match.
In the fourth, however, the Knights seemed undeterred and opened an early 5-1 lead. After pulling ahead 10-5, they rattled off a 14-3 run to close the set and forced a fifth, 25-8.
Then, in the fifth, for the first time in the match it seemed the momentum from the prior set carried over as Wheeling Central scored nine of the first 11 points and then fended off Big Red’s attempt to rally to win the set 15-10 and the match 3-2.
“We told them we hoped we got all the bad out of the way in the fourth and would bounce back in the fifth, and we did, but we got going just a little too late,” Colabella said. “Playing a match like that against a good team like them is going to make us better. I’m proud of the effort, we played hard, we just didn’t capitalize when we needed to.
“We’ll come back Thursday ready to bounce back.”
For Big Red, Aubrey Slussar had 18 assists, five kills and three digs, Phynyx Fleming tallied nine kills, two blocks, two digs and an ace, Arya Bigsby had six kills, four digs, a block and two aces, Addy Snyder had five kills, seven blocks and nine digs, Terionah Thompson had nine kills and two blocks and Kaylee Sustik recorded 21 digs
For Wheeling Central, Remy Peters had 17 kills, 13 digs, a block and an ace, Chloe Groome tallied five kills, four aces, 14 digs and 27 assists, Liv Stephens had 24 digs and three aces, Morgan Miehle had 12 kills, three aces and nine digs and Teagan Peters tallied nine kills, a block and four digs.
UP NEXT
Wheeling Central: Travels to Monroe Central on Saturday.
Big Red: Visits Edison on Thursday.