CLARION, Pa. (D9Sports) — It’s not how you start but how you finish.
(Photo: Brenna Campbell)
Second-seeded Clarion overcame a slow start to knock off seventh-seeded Elk County Catholic, 3-1 (22-25, 25-17, 25-20, 25-18), in the District 9 Class 1A girls’ volleyball quarterfinals Tuesday night at Clarion High School.
Relisten to the audio broadcast of the game
Using a bit of a different lineup and playing for the first time in 12 days, Clarion dropped the first set, 25-22, and at times looked a little disoriented in doing so.
But late in the first set, the Lady Cats went back to a lineup they were comfortable with, and the end result was the 13th win of the season for Clarion.
“We haven’t played in about a week and a half,” Clarion sophomore setter Brenna Campbell, who was named the Hager Paving Player of the Game after recording 31 set assists and four digs, said. “I am not making excuses. We just wanted to put our best passers out on the court for the first (set), but we reverted back to our first lineup because that is something we are more comfortable with. We have been working on a lot of new things in practice, and we wanted to see if we could start out with that. It still needs a little work, but we are getting there.”
One of the changes made by Clarion head coach Shari Campbell, Brenna’s mom, was to reinsert freshman Korrin Burns into the rotation.
Burns, who didn’t play much in the first set until the very end of the set, responded by leading Clarion with 11 kills while completing a double-double with 10 digs. She was the catalyst for the second-set win with seven kills in the set.
But Burns wasn’t alone, as seven different Lady Cats had kills including four with at least five kills.
“We have a lot of offensive players,” Brenna Campbell said. “We want to get them in as much as we can. My ability to set them how they want to, it just creates a better game for us.”
Watch all of Brenna Campbell’s thoughts on the victory.
In addition to Burns’ double-digit kills, Maddie Schill added nine kills and and seven digs and Kait Constantino and Hailey Sintobin each had five kills.
Maddie Schill goes up for a kill Tuesday. Photo by Howie Dittman.
Clarion also got a strong defensive efforts from KK Girvin (18 digs), Jordan Best (7 digs) and Schill (7 digs).
That defensive effort was needed considering the prolificness of ECC’s all-around stud junior hitter Taylor Newton.
Newton had a match-best 17 kills and countless digs and was the focal point of the Lady Crusaders offense most of the night.
Taylor Newton puts down one of her 17 kills for ECC Tuesday. Photo by Howie Dittman
Hannah Barnett added six kills for ECC.
Clarion will host rival A-C Valley, the third seed, at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the semifinals. The game will be audio broadcast live on exploreClarion starting at 6:10 p.m.
