John Bruce, Editor
Southern Ohio Sports Authority is presented by Holzer Health System.
CHILLICOTHE — First place in the Scioto Valley Conference was on the line Thursday night when Southeastern met with Zane Trace.
And, despite a slow start, the Panthers roared back to secure a sweep to remain atop the league standings.
Southeastern (10-2, 5-1 SVC) used a stingy defense and an impressive performance from the service line to close out a 25-19, 25-16, 25-15 victory.
“I think it started with our warm-up. I felt like our girls were jumping out of the gym,” Southeastern coach Brittany Lougheed said. “The kids were just so excited for today and then just seeing all of the faces in the crowd, that just built up the momentum for us.”
With a great warm-up and massive amounts of energy in the Larry Jordan Gymnasium, it would’ve seemed that Southeastern would get an immediate boost to start the match.
However, Karlee Snavely and the Pioneers (7-3, 4-2 SVC) calmed that energy throughout the first eight points.
Zane Trace took the opening two points before Southeastern’s Kylee Dunn hammered home a kill for the Panthers’ first score. The Pioneers won the next five serves, thanks to a trio of kills from Snavely, and a pair of aces from junior Lydia Jarrell.
Down 7-1 in the opening set, Lougheed called a timeout to calm her troops.
“Sometimes I think you can get so hyped up and play with so much energy that it does make you play bad,” Lougheed added. “So we do have to kind of keep calm in certain situations.”
The Panthers quickly did settle in, eventually cutting the lead to 10-9 before multiple service errors helped ZT build the lead back to 14-10.
It would be Southeastern’s No. 4, Macy Stanley, who gave her teammates the momentum needed to sail to an opening set win.
Stanley gained a point for the Panthers on a backside kill, assisted by Macy Strausbaugh to start the run for the blue and white. After a ZT hitting error, Stanley served up an ace, before another error tied the set. Following an extended rally, Stanley, the sophomore setter, found the court to give Southeastern a lead.
Once the Panthers gained the advantage, they rode that momentum to a 19-14 edge before the Pioneers finally quelled the run to make it 19-16. But Strausbaugh’s kill down the line and a pair of aces from Calley Stauffer all but ended ZT’s hopes in the set.
A final kill, once again down the line from Strausbaugh, put away a 25-19 victory.
The second game felt like an anything you can do, I can do better face-off between Dunn and Snavely, with each junior taking big swings at the net to keep their team alive. The difference in the set came both at the service line and defensively, as Southeastern got aces from Dunn, Briley Kirkbride and Jade Turner, before the defense took over.
“It felt like everyone was everywhere,” Lougheed said of the Panthers’ defensive effort. “They were digging with random parts. Calley made a play with her shoulder. It felt like the ball was coming to us and we were ready for anything.”
Southeastern took the second by a 25-16 final to go ahead 2-0 in the match, and ran away again in the third, once again with Stanley at the service line for a 25-15 set-win to secure the sweep.
In the win, the Panthers had a variety of players make big time plays that led to the sweep and Lougheed was impressed with her team’s entire effort.
“So many names tonight, from my perspective, played well. Kylee Dunn, Kylie Williams, we needed her tonight and she played lights out. Strausbaugh, Stanley, Briley [Kirkbride], Jade, Calley, I mean all of them played together as one unit tonight. Obviously, we made some mistakes, but the girls were good enough to say, ‘Let’s go, we’re good, we got this, stay low, we got this.'”
The Panthers are now tied with Unioto at the top of the SVC standings while Zane Trace drops to a game behind the duo.
To stay at the top of the league, the Panthers will need each member of their roster.
“I do like the energy off of the bench. Those kids practice day and night, and sometimes don’t really get the playing time,” Lougheed said of her bench. “But everything they do matters. And I think that having that bench so hyped up helped us on the floor as well.”
Southeastern is back in action on Monday, hosting Racine Southern. Zane Trace will attempt to rebound on Saturday, traveling to Hillsboro for a tri-match with Western Brown.
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