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Olmsted Falls finds "the extra degree" and takes down Cincinnati Ursuline in state final November 11, 2008 By Jim Jicha The Olmsted Falls volleyball team believed in themselves. They believed they could, in the words of senior middle hitter Christine Peffer, “do anything we set our minds to do”. When they were down 0-2 in a regional semifinal against Toledo St. Ursula and facing elimination, they believed they could come back and win. They did 18-25, 21-25, 25-14, 25-20, 15-11. And when they stepped onto the Nutter Center yesterday to play Cincinnati Ursuline Academy, they believed they could do something no Cuyahoga County school had ever done before. Win the big school state championship. Never mind that no Cuyahoga County big school had ever even won a match at the state level against a GGCL school. Or that the GGCL had won nine of the last ten Division I titles, and no big school in all of Ohio, except for Toledo St. Ursula, had defeated a GGCL team at state during that time. Or that Cincinnati Ursuline Academy just happened to be ranked third in the nation by PrepVolleyball.com. On Saturday, November 8, 2008, the Bulldogs did what most people believed they could not. They took down Cincinnati’s finest 39-37, 16-25, 25-21, 25-12 to capture their school's first state championship in volleyball. Olmsted Falls, which moved up to Division I last year, had been to state twice before. They lost in semifinals both times, most recently to Roger Bacon in 2000. The players knew nobody was giving them much of a chance, and that was fine with them. They preferred to be the underdogs. They loved “hearing people talk about how we’re not gonna win” Peffer referred to “something in the paper that said after they (Ursuline) beat Mt. Notre Dame, they felt that was the state championship game right there. She said “I feel they just didn’t expect us to come out and give it all we had. I don’t think they saw us coming”. She added “I like being the underdog, I like proving people wrong”. Outside hitter Brittany Snider continued in that vein with “We were looking on forums last night saying how no one thought we were gonna score 20 points in any single game”. She laughed and added “and obviously, I mean 39…that wasn’t right.” Whyte said the comeback against St. Ursula helped them against Ursuline. “In the Toledo game when we went down two games to none we kept telling ourselves we’re the only people who believe in ourselves here”. She continued “I think we were the only people who believed we could win today in the state championship. And we came out and proved people wrong again”. Whyte talked about how badly the team wanted a state title and how she had played this over in her mind. Then she observed that “sometimes passion does win over talent”. Both coaches agreed that Olmsted Falls’ defense played a major role in the outcome. Bulldog defenders seemed to be everywhere according to Ursuline Coach Jeni Case, who explained “Wherever we set our hitters had two blockers to hit against, they were there for our tips and when we were hitting the line they were on the line”. Case thought her players may have gotten a little timid because “We’re not used to having people pick us apart that much”. She wrapped her comments up with “I don’t usually say many teams play better defense than we do, but they were scrappy, they were all over, it looked like they were playing to win”. Indeed they were. Bulldog libero Brooke Purvis always seemed to be down whatever line outside hitter Jade Henderson attacked, and the Ursuline hitting star had to work really hard for her team leading 14 kills. Snider meanwhile, somersaulted wherever she needed to get loose balls. She said later “defense is more fun…like, I think getting a big dig is more fun than getting a big kill”. Meanwhile, setter Dayna Roberts and Whyte were uncanny in their ability to read the offense. Meanwhile, Whyte, Peffer, Corinne Manley and Snider vigilantly patrolled the net. They didn’t score that many block kills - Ursuline led 10-7 in that category - but their touches and rejections kept Ursuline from scoring and put in reaction mode. As a result, the Lions found it very difficult to get balls through untouched, and to get balls to go down. Olmsted Falls Coach Dawn Moses emphasized defense as well. “I said before the game we needed to match them defensively, and I don’t think we just matched them, I think we played better. We put our best defense on the floor”. She summed it up with “Ultimately defense wins championships and that’s what we were out to do". Moses singled out Brooke Purvis, whose stellar backcourt play extended several volleys. “Brooke played a phenomenal game” said Moses. “She’s a great libero, we’ve known that all year, and to put that effort on the floor today was just amazing. We did keep moving her around, sometimes we told her to go center and sometimes we told her to go line, back and forth, back and forth, and sometimes she would just look at us. But we needed to change our defensive scheme at times so put her in different places.” “Brittany Snider played her best defensive game of the year as well”, according to Moses. Falls’ most prolific diggers were Roberts (23) and Whyte (22), followed by Purvis and Snider with 19 and 17, respectively. That helps explain why they seemed to be everywhere. In her spare time, when she wasn’t digging, Roberts put up 63 assists. It should be noted that the Lions’ defense was stellar too. Libero Kori Moster led both squads with 39 digs, and she repeatedly threw herself in the air and onto the floor for saves. Henderson added 17 digs, and she, outside/middle Christina Beer and middle Katie Schings teamed up for 13 block assists. Two factors other than defense also provided the Bulldogs an edge in this title match. One of them was Whyte, who had 36 kills and a slew of terminations on 86 attacks. She was on target too with a kill percentage of .302. Whenever Olmsted Falls really needed a point Whyte would deliver, from whichever row she was in. But perhaps the biggest reason Olmsted Falls won was that they attained a high level of intensity, and they sustained that intensity throughout the match. Case summed up the Bulldogs’ performance with “That team was awesome”. She added “They knew where we were going, they were there on the blocks, their offense was much faster than ours, and they just outplayed us”. Game one began with nary a hint of anything out of the ordinary. Whyte scored the first kill of the match. But Beer and Henderson teamed up to block Whyte’s next attempt. Then 6’0” middle Katie Schings blasted the first of her 12 kills though Whyte’s block, and the Bulldogs committed an error. After Whyte scored again, Henderson and Schings spiked kills and the two teamed up for another block on Whyte. Two Bulldog attack errors and a third kill by Henderson put the Lions on top 9-2. Falls scored three on kills by Manley, Peffer and Snider, but Ursuline went up 14-6 as junior Lauren Marlatt and setter Dani Reinert spiked points, and Reinert dug a ball out of the net after which the Bulldogs obliged with an error. The Bulldogs scored twice, but Beer demolished a Reinert short set and Ursuline was up 15-8 and seemed headed for a 1-0 lead. That’s when the Bulldogs began their onslaught. Snider spiked a point to right back. With Roberts serving, Whyte scored on a play at the net, and Snider blasted two kills. Digs by Snider and Whyte prolonged a volley that ended with a lift by Ursuline. Snider block killed to tie the score. Beer ended the run, but Snider retied with a cross-court shot. And after Manley rejected a spike, Ursuline obliged with a hitting error. Whyte followed with a kill to put Olmsted Falls on top 18-16. The teams traded points, and Whyte scored again, although it took three swings before one went down. A block by Whyte put Falls up 22-17, and after a Bulldog net infraction, Whyte tipped into a hole on the left. But the Lions roared back with three straight, as Schings served two of her four aces. Whyte terminated a point from backcourt to set up game point. But Ursuline was having none of that. Beer block killed, Reinert served one of her four aces and Marlatt and Beer teamed up on a game tying block. But Snider turned things around with a pop from the left to an empty back middle, giving Olmsted Falls the first of three more game point leads. Ursuline averted each one, with a cross-court shot by Schings leaving the score knotted at 27. On the next frantic volley, Snider pancaked a save and Meister dug a bomb from Whyte, before Schings and Henderson finally ended things with a monster block on Manley that give Ursuline its first game point lead. Olmsted Falls regained the advantage at 30-29 when Peffer found an empty right corner, negating a great save by Ursuline of a shot from backcourt by Whyte, and the Bulldogs got three more shots at victory. But after Beer tied at 33, a hit from white sailed long. Whyte came right back, demolishing a short set from Roberts that sliced off a diving dig. But Schings responded with another big block to keep Ursuline ahead in the back and forth struggle. Whyte retied it with a blast into an empty back middle. The next play was huge. Henderson streaked a sinking liner down the left. Purvis threw herself to the floor and pancaked the ball straight over the net and into a hole on Ursuline’s left front. The advantage was again with the Bulldogs. Henderson retied with her next missive, and Whyte spiked Falls back into the lead. Schings attempted to retie from the left, and after Purvis dug that one, she slid to her right and delivered a bomb down the line. Junior Bulldog outside Shannon DeLeur and Peffer double blocked to put Falls on top again. This came after Whyte dug an attempted dump from Reinert. But second effort, or what the Bulldogs call “the extra degree” paid off big as Snider found a way to end it with a tip off the block. (The extra degree refers to the Bulldogs’ team motto which was “212”. That stands for the boiling point of water. As Dawn Moses explained “At 211, water is hot, but at 212 it boils water and produces the steam to power a train. It’s been our quote all year”. “It takes the extra degree” added Snider.) The latter half of this incredible game was mostly error free, as Olmsted Falls and Ursuline matched each other dig for dig, block for block and kill for kill. There were 17 ties and six lead changes in the game. Asked what was going through their minds at the time, Roberts said “We had a goal in our mind and we weren’t going to let it fall short over two points. So we just gave it all we got and gave the extra degree and we won the game.” Snider interjected with “We needed to put in more than we had before, and give something to win by two points and not just go back and forth. We had to finish it”. She finished it. Both coaches saw game one as critical. Moses explained “We wanted to get that first game because Ursuline hadn’t lost that first game all year, and we wanted to put their backs up against the wall and make them dig out of it”. Case felt that “losing that first game took some air out of our tire”. She noted her team hadn’t lost a game in the tournaments, and they hadn’t lost many all year. She said “losing that one that close and that long really did a number on us”. The Bulldogs kept up their torrid pace to start game two and, led by Manley, DeLeur and Peffer, grabbed a 7-3 lead. But Ursuline quickly reasserted itself as Reinert dumped into a hole, Schings aced, and Reinert followed a Bulldog miscue with a booming block. Whyte intervened with a kill, but a Bulldog touched the net on the next volley. Ursuline ran off six more points as Reinert served two aces, and a spike by outside Chelsea Sensibaugh was lifted. The Bulldogs could got as close as 19-15, when Reinert scored another dump and outside Holly Gottschall added a kill. An ace by Schings made the score 23-15. Gottschall spiked for point 24, and Sensibaugh blasted game point across court to the right back. Whyte began game three with a kill, and scoring went back and forth to 4-4. Falls broke ahead on a spike by Peffer and an ace from Stephanie Strodtbeck, but Ursuline responded with five straight as Gottschall and Beer blocked and Sensibaugh blasted a kill. The Lions maintained their lead to 14-12. No one in the Nutter Center knew it, but Olmsted Falls was about to make history. The Bulldogs started their drive with three points. But Ursuline answered in kind to stay in front 17-15. Whyte then spiked a cross-court shot from back court, and after a long hit by the Lions, Roberts dumped a two-hander to the right line. Gottschall retied it for the Lions, but Snider reposted with a smash from the left, and she and Manley block killed. The Bulldogs were ahead 20-18, and Ursuline had seen its last lead of the match. The teams traded points and a kill down the line by Henderson left the Bulldogs up 21-20. But the Lions made two unfortunate errors, and on the ensuing volley Snider dug Henderson and Whyte demolished the ball for a 24-20 lead. Schings cratered a cross-court smash into the right corner. Both teams came up with some great digs on what would be the final volley, and Ursuline thwarted repeated spikes from Whyte. But White finally found “the extra degree” and delivered a shot that was too hot to handle. After game one, an Olmsted Falls win still seemed a stretch. And after game two, the Lions appeared to be in the driver’s seat. But with the Bulldogs now up 2-1, and game five now a requisite for an Ursuline victory, fans were guaranteed a memorable ending no matter who won. But there would be no game five. Olmsted Falls scored the first three points of game four and they never looked back. There would be no ties and no lead changes. The Bulldogs would move farther and farther in front, and whenever Ursuline would start something, they would answer. And as the game progressed more and more people began to believe. The Bulldogs played this game with a passion seldom seen anywhere. You could see it in the fight in their eyes, it was written on their faces and it was on full display in the intensity of they play and in how they came together as a team to celebrate every single score. Falls scored first on a tip by Manley. The Lions obliged with an attack error and Whyte added a kill. Beer finally put Ursuline on the board, which Snider countered with a tip. Ursuline libero Kori Moster saved a partial block from scoring, and Schings and Sensibaugh teamed up for a block. The Bulldogs were up 4-2, but 25 seemed a long way off, especially against the Lions. But now, Olmsted Falls started another run. Whyte scored on a save over the net, Snider made a diving save after which Peffer lofted a blooper over the blockers into a hole, and Purvis served an ace. And when Henderson blasted a shot down the left Purvis was there for the pass, and it was Whyte who scored. The score was 8-2. Ursuline was in trouble and called timeout. The players were asked afterward how important it was to get off to the lead in game four. One of them responded “It was huge because we had the momentum on our side after the third game, and so that kept us up and we just said one more, and this is our goal, this had been our goal all year, this was our dream and once we got that big lead 8-2 we just weren’t going to let it go”. That became quickly apparent. Henderson broke the run by popping a teammate’s partial block over for a kill, but Whyte added another point to her tally. Gottschall countered that with a spike off the block. With the score 9-4, Ursuline needed to close a bit, but it was Olmsted Falls that came up with two, as Whyte smashed a kill from back court that was dug into the stands, and Peffer blocked Beer who was trying to terminate a short set. Gottschall did terminate the next point, but Snider came right back with a kill down the left, and the Lions hit into the net. The score was now 13-5 and Olmsted Falls was halfway home. Henderson, however, scored on a blast down the middle and, ominously, Gottschall, who was having a great game – she ended with 11 kills on .421 percent hitting - pounded a kill from back court to end a long and intense volley. But the Bulldogs answered, as Manley smoked a short set from Roberts, and when a Lions cross-court blast landed harmlessly out of bounds, the Bulldogs were still ahead by eight. More importantly, they were two points closer. On the next volley, Henderson was dug by Whyte, but she terminated her next delivery anyway. Whyte parried that with a kill and another Lions’ hit sailed out. In a deep hole with match point now on the horizon, Ursuline called timeout. It was to no avail. Whyte dug a Lions spike and then tipped cross-court into an empty spot as two defenders collided trying for a save. A hitting error upped the ante to 19-8. Ursuline came back with two, the first on a line drive kill by Marlatt, the second on a net violation by Whyte who was attempting a termination. But Whyte came right back with a knock down kill off a short set from Roberts. With the score 20-10, Purvis dove to keep a smash from scoring, Peffer dug her dig and Manley sent the ball back over the net. The Bulldogs weren’t letting anything drop. After frantic play by both sides, Whyte scored again, this time on a tip. On the next volley, Peffer ended a battle at the net with a kill. Whyte streaked another spike that was dug so high it hit the ceiling scoreboard on its way over. Peffer went down with an ankle injury on this play. It could have spelled disaster, but the score was 23-10. The Bulldogs were called for a center line violation on the next play, but Whyte got things quickly back on track by demolishing a short set. Schings kept Ursuline alive with a spike that was dug into the net. The respite was brief. On the next volley, Whyte, who was now in back row, sent a powerful blast over the net down the right. The diving dig sliced to defender’s right, across the back court and out. A moment later the reality of a dream fulfilled flashed through Whyte’s mind. “Oh my God, I’m a state champion!”
Match Notes 1) When Lauren Whyte was told she had 36 kills, she responded with “Really. That’s pretty cool”. Then she added “I mean it’s my last high school game ever, I might as well go out on a boom”. 2) When asked whether winning the state title was better than they thought it would be, they said "Better". Then Brittany Snider exclaimed "This will be better than my wedding". 3) Dawn Moses said the Bulldogs had three goals this year: go undefeated in conference; be state champions; be undefeated in five-game matches. She said they knew they were capable of doing this, and that it would require going through a Cincinnati team. Mission accomplished. 4) When asked what would be most memorable about their state championship the players said “no one thinking we could do it except for ourselves”. 5) The Bulldogs finished the year as Ohio's only undefeated team at 29-0. Ursuline ended at 28-1. 6) Olmsted Falls isn’t the first team to score 39 points in a final four volleyball match. In a 2004 semifinal, Toledo St. Ursula was down 0-2 to Cincinnati Seton and trailed 19-23 in game three. They won that game 39-37, rallied from 20-24 in game four and won the match 16-25, 16-25, 39-37, 26-24, 15-7. The Arrows beat Mother of Mercy in three for the title. The next year Toledo St. Ursula and Seton met again, this time for the state title, and Seton rallied from 0-2 to win it all 20-25, 22-25, 25-22, 25-19, 15-12.
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