VOLLEYBALL: Patience pays off as Huron moves into state finals

In volleyball, patience is an extremely testing virtue.

The Huron Lady Tigers tested every ounce of patience they had Friday afternoon in a Division III state semifinal match against Middletown Bishop Fenwick at the Ervin J. Nutter Center, but rebounded from losing a 24-21 Game 3 lead to win the match in five games, 25-22, 12-25, 24-26, 25-21, 15-10.

With the win, Huron (25-3) advanced to its fourth state title match in six trips since 1999 to Dayton, where it will play Frankfort Adena (26-2) at 3 p.m. today for the championship — immediately after St. Paul’s Division IV title match with Maria Stein Marion Local at 1 p.m.

“I’ll take that win any day,” Huron coach Don Wood said. “I think at crucial points, we just made less errors and showed good patience. Sometimes that patience pays off when the other team has to make a play. Even the best of teams when they have to make play after play, they are going to make errors.

“I think in Game 5 we got a couple of those. I’m very pleased with our kids showing some toughness and battling through what was maybe not our best ball handling day.”

Read Mark Hazelwood's blog about today's championship game.

With the match tied at 1, Huron had a service error and the Falcons (22-5) got back-to-back aces from Jessica Levy to tie it at 24. They kept the Lady Tigers reeling with a kill by Alyssa Beck and then a hitting error by Jesse Miedema to steal a 26-24 victory.

“Jessica is an aggressive server and kept Huron on their heels a little bit there,” Fenwick coach Yoon Ha said. “That was the one time I felt we executed and had them flustered a little bit. We knew Huron was going to be tough, but what it came down to was we did not execute when we needed to. 

“One thing with Don’s teams is they are very basic and we knew what they were going to do, but when we got those chances we didn’t put them away.”

In Game 4, Huron broke a 15-15 tie by scoring nine of the next 13 points to take a commanding 24-19 lead. Fenwick came back with the next two points to give Huron that cautious 24-21 lead again, but the Lady Tigers forced a winner-take-all Game 5 when Katlyn Sommer slammed one home at the net for a game-winning kill. 

In the decisive final game, Huron broke a 7-7 tie with a kill from Taylor Slauterbeck and an attack error by Fenwick to go up 9-7.

The Lady Tigers never trailed again, as four of the next six points went Huron’s way to give it a 13-9 lead. A kill by Miedema and another hitting error by Fenwick sealed the win and sent the Lady Tigers back to the championshp match.

Fenwick committed four hitting errors in the final game, while Miedema had five kills for Huron.

“Fenwick is a heck of a team,” Wood said. “They had my No. 1 vote all season long, and they showed me today why I was voting for them. 

“But as the match went on, we handled the ball much better. I wanted to win that Game 3, obviously, but after the Game 2 loss I felt the match was going better for us at that point.”

In Game 1, Huron broke a 21-all tie with four of the last five points that included three errors by Fenwick. However, in Game 2 the Lady Tigers were never in it, falling behind by scores of 13-6 and 22-11 before falling 25-13.

“Wow, that second game ... it was just bad,” Wood said.

Wood also talked about today’s title match with Adena, which advanced with a four-game win over Smithville.

“They are a great defensive team,” he said. “You’re not going to get any breaks from a defensive team, so we’ll have to stay patient with them, too. They’re very similar to us, and I think it’ll be a terrific battle.”