LCC, St. Henry head to regional finals

FINDLAY - Ever since Dave Franklin took over the Lima Central Catholic volleyball program, the motto has been the same.

Be relentless on the court.

The Thunderbirds found themselves down after their first game Thursday night, but came back to take the next three games, en route to Division III volleyball regional semifinal 3-1 victory over Heath at Liberty-Benton.

LCC (24-1) lost the first game, 25-23. It won the next three, 25-16, 25-11 and 25-22 to earn a matchup against St. Henry in a regional final match at 1p.m. on Saturday at Liberty-Benton High School.

St. Henry (16-10) won the first match of the night, defeating Huron (20-6) in four games, 26-28, 25-15, 25-17 and 25-16.

Franklin said his team plays with a great deal of confidence, no matter what the situation is.

"Since I've been here, the motto has always been, ‘Play every point, play each match, one at a time,' " Franklin said. "They are relentless. If they lose a game, it's no big deal. It's just one game. They know they can come back."

Danielle Taflinger and Jo Jo Kreig led LCC with 18 and 17 kills, respectively. Mary Fisher led the T-Birds with 13 digs, while teammate Alexis Diglio recorded 52 assists.

In the fourth and final game, the T-Birds were down three times with the game knotted eight times. However, behind the strong play near the net by Krieg, Taflinger and Rachel Illig, LCC battled back to put the game away.

In the past two seasons, the T-Birds have yet to been taken to a fifth game. In Thursday's match with Heath, the T-Birds were determined to put it away in the fourth game.

"In game four, we were aggressive on our serves," Franklin said. "But, that's the way we play. We might lose a battle here and there, but by the end of the night, we hopefully will have won more battles than the other team. We're going to keep coming at you."

In the first match at Liberty-Benton, St. Henry took four games before it put Huron away. Brooke Mattingly led St. Henry with 16 kills. Teammate Shelby Buschur recorded 14 kills.

The win on Thursday marked St. Henry's 14th consecutive win.

St. Henry coach Lori Schwieterman said her team has been playing well all year.

"It's not like we played bad teams (before its winning streak)," Schwieterman said. "We played some pretty good teams."

Schwieterman said her team's defensive effort came to the forefront against Huron.

"Defensively, we really had some people step it up tonight," she said. "We did a good job of blocking and we also did a nice job of defending their blocks."

ST. HENRY 3, HURON 1