Down to the wire

SHAWNEE TOWNSHIP - The first time Celina and Elida played volleyball this season, Celina won in five sets.

After two sets on Wednesday in the Division II district quarterfinals at Shawnee, it was looking like this one would go the distance a well.

It nearly went beyond 15 points in the set before Elida avenged the earlier loss to Celina with a 25-16, 21-25, 25-14, 15-25, 15-13 win at Lappin Gymnasium.

Elida (16-8) advances to the district semifinals at Toledo Central Catholic against Shawnee after the Indians defeated Van Wert in three sets in the nightcap.

"Tough, so tough," said Celina coach Angela Bourne. "I thought our serve receive and defense was excellent tonight. We had a few missed digs, but we were passing well. Way too many hitting errors."

The first four sets saw the teams take turns in getting some big plays and taking advantage of errors. Elida pulled away in the first set thanks to a four-point run by Kylie Vorhees and later a two-point run by Lana Burtchin helped give Elida the first set.

It looked like Elida would take the second set with ease after getting up 17-13, but a net serve gave Celina the serve back and Brooklyn Bourne made the serves count, running off a string of seven straight points. Maria Lutz had two blocks and a kill and Bourne added an ace to turn the deficit into a 21-17 lead. Elida got it back to 22-21, but Celina held tough to level the set.

The third and fourth sets were much like the first one as Elida dominated the third set for the big win, only for Celina to do likewise in the fourth set to set up the tiebreaker.

"That was so weird to have a big gap (margin of victory) in those games (after the close second set)," said coach Bourne.

Celina got the serve to begin the fifth set, but lost it on a hitting error. Elida began to put some distance, going up 4-1 and then 7-2 after Celina was called for being in the net. Maria Lutz quickly stopped the run with a kill. Celina got two points back to make it 7-5. Emily Schwieterman later got Celina into a tie at 8-8 with a two-point run. Chloe McNeilan put Celina in the lead at 10-9 and later an Evie Holstad kill gave Celina a 12-10 lead before Addisyn Freeman gave Elida the serve back with a kill. Cadence Miller took the serve and got the match tied again at 12-all on a Celina hitting error. An Elida hitting error gave Celina the lead back at 13-12, but Freeman tallied a block to tie the set at 13-all as Lauren Engle went back to serve for Celina. Freeman got a stuff block for match point and then Engle scored an ace to clinch the victory.

"Overall, I'm happy. I try to tell the girls there's no such thing as losing, only winning and learning," said coach Bourne. "Tonight, we learned a lot."

Holstad had 11 kills for Celina with Maria Lutz tallying 10 kills. Brooklyn Bourne served up five aces as Payton Bertke recorded 43 assists and Summer Wilson had 40 digs.