Mogadore seniors (left to right) Gracie Shull, Kourtney Beech, Sophia Runion and Kaitlyn Clester.

By Roger Gordon

Correspondent

Mogadore’s first two games of the postseason were wins in dominating fashion.

The top-seeded Wildcats easily defeated both Windham in a Division VII sectional final Oct. 22 and Lordstown Oct. 27 in a district semifinal. The score against the Bombers was 25-8, 25-10, 25-10, and the tally versus the Red Devils was 25-10, 25-17, 25-7.

The Wildcats are now 19-5 on the season.

Leading the way against Lordstown were senior right-side hitter Sophia Runion and defensive specialist Kourtney Beech.

“Sophia did a great job. She had to play all the way around because our Libero was a little under the weather,” head coach Jessica Butler said. “Kourtney did a nice job with some really good defensive plays.”

Pacing Mogadore in the Windham game were senior middle hitter/outside hitter Kaitlyn Clester and junior outside hitter Emma Butler. Clester had 11 kills and eight assists.

“Kaitlyn is just really flexible in the front row,” said Butler. “Emma brought a lot of energy to the team. She produced a lot of kills. She did a nice job producing some out-of-system balls and kills.”

Sophomore middle hitter/outside hitter Londyn Umbright tallied three kills and a block.

The coach has a unique way of keeping her players in a competitive mindset when playing opponents that are simply not of their ilk.

“When you play a team that’s not at your level, you tend to play down to that level,” she said. “So we go in there and play against ourselves, making sure the level of competition is still maintaining that level of high competition that we can play regardless of what’s coming on the other side.”

Mogadore will oppose Southington Chalker in a district championship match Thursday at Smithville at 7 p.m. The Wildcats will try to erase the stench of last year’s loss to Independence in the same round.

“We try not to focus on being the first seed,” she said. “I really didn’t expect to get first seed because we had some losses, but the level of competition we played this year produced us to be first seed. I schedule that way purposely. Our real big focus, since we’re not part of a league, has been about going far in the playoffs, so this has been on our minds since the very beginning. I feel, if anybody’s going to beat us, its going to be ourselves and not anybody else. So we’re focusing on being the best team that we can be at all times.

“I feel like we can go very far in the playoffs. If we play the way we’ve played in the second half of our season and we just keep our focus on what we need to do as a team, we’re going to be hard to beat. As long as the girls show up and are ready to play, I have full confidence that we’re going to end up with a win even if it gets really close.”

ROOTSTOWN

When an athletic team is not at its best and still finds a way to win, that is a good sign.

Take Rootstown’s Division V sectional final against Cardinal Mooney Oct. 22 at Wooster Triway. The Rovers won 25-16, 25-19, 25-15 but simply weren’t up to snuff.

“We were just off,” head coach Dana Kern said. “We knew we were capable of playing better, but we just couldn’t really get out of the funk that we had going on. I think the long bus ride … I had girls fall asleep on the ride there, which is not normal for them. We’ve had some sicknesses. I think we played as well as we could’ve at that time but not our best.”

Juniors Olivia O’Neill, a setter, and Sophia Byers, an outside hitter, played well. O’Neill had 39 assists, while Byers amassed 18 service points, 15 digs and 14 kills.

“Olivia has played very well as my lone setter all season long. She doesn’t get breaks, doesn’t have anyone who steps in for her. She just goes out there and does her job and does it great,” said Kern. “Sophia is our go-to. She’s very, very smart. She knows how to take the ball off the block’s hands, hit high off their hands, hit past them, hit lines. She just really sees a lot of things. And she’s one of my most consistent servers and places the ball very well also.”

Five nights later, on Oct. 27, Rootstown was eliminated by host Triway, the No. 4 seed led by sophomore all-everything hitter Pyper Hamilton, 25-17, 25-12, 21-25, 25-14 in a district semifinal.

The Rovers wound up with a 14-10 record.

“Going against Hamilton is not what we’ve seen a lot of, players of her caliber,” the coach said. “So we had to try some different things as we are not the biggest team. And blocking is something we struggle with a little bit, not having much height other than my two middles. It was new to the girls, but I think they handled it well. Triway is a very good team. We’d have to be on our best game to have a chance against them.”

Freshman outside hitter Alexa Sladky totaled 13 kills in defeat.

“Alexa played very well,” said Kern. “She’s really starting to pick up from the older girls on the volleyball IQ of being able to do different things whether it’s hitting, tipping, going off the hands, where to place the ball as she’s hitting. She’s come a long way this year.”

Kern is looking at next season as another step in the building process.

“We’ve managed to increase our wins every year,” she said. “We managed to go two matches into the postseason this year where we haven’t gone two games in … I’m not sure how many years it’s been. These kids want to keep building and going further, so they’re hungry to work.”