Defending state champs oust Randolph
Photo courtesy of Steve Garvey Randolph's Addyson Shawley hits past Portville's Leigha Stives during the Section VI Class C championship game at McElrath Gymnasium on Thursday night.
Photo courtesy of Steve Garvey Portville's Emily Scanlon hits as Randolph's Lucy Conley goes up to block during the Section VI Class C championship at McElrath Gymnasium on Thursday night.
Photo courtesy of Steve Garvey Randolph's Addyson Shawley hits past Portville's Leigha Stives during the Section VI Class C championship game at McElrath Gymnasium on Thursday night.
Photo courtesy of Steve Garvey Portville's Emily Scanlon hits as Randolph's Lucy Conley goes up to block during the Section VI Class C championship at McElrath Gymnasium on Thursday night.
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JAMESTOWN -- The Portville girls volleyball team had won 12 Section VI championships in a row entering Thursday's Class C final against Randolph at the McElrath Gymnasium in Jamestown.
The last time the Panthers lost in the final was in 2013 against Randolph for the Class D championship.
Randolph responded to a lopsided 25-11 defeat in the first set with a 25-21 win in the second to even the score. While the seventh-seeded Cardinals had hopes of ending the Portville dominance in Section VI the top-seeded Panthers did what they do best and won the final two sets 25-18, 25-15 to secure a 13th straight Section VI title.
"I can't be any prouder of this team and what they've done," Randolph head coach Bayley Johnson stated. "Losing my outside hitter for half the season, coming in as a No. 7 seed, we really had a lot of adversity this season. They just put their heart and soul into this playoff run and I guess the word I would call this group of girls is 'special.' They're special to me, they've been with me since I started at Randolph and I couldn't be prouder of them."
Randolph jumped on Portville early taking a 5-3 lead highlighted by two towering kills from senior Addyson Shawley, but that was where the fun ended for the Cardinals in the first set. Portville proceeded to rattle off 11 straight points and grabbed a commanding 14-5 lead.
The Cardinals scored the next four points, but could only manage one more moving forward as runs of six and five led to the 25-11 decision.
Instead of folding against the five-time defending state champions, Randolph instead decided to even the score behind some impressive play by its senior outside hitter.
"We've started slow all season," Johnson stated. "That's kind of been our thing and at Gowanda we lost the first set. Then, always the second set we find our fire. We made a few adjustments over at the bench, talked about some of their rotations and adjustments with what we needed to do and we executed that second set."
The Cardinals improved defensively, not allowing Portville to score anything larger than a three-point run. Along with that, Portville could not stop Shawley, who hammered 10 of her 26 kills in the set and she recorded two of her three aces on the night.
"Addyson Shawley, I keep saying this over and over," Johnson said. "She's a great offensive weapon, but she's just a great teammate. She trusts her teammates, she plays hard, she believes in every single one of them and she's mentally tough. She knows how to play volleyball."
The set remained tight all the way to the end, even tied at 20-all, but it was Randolph finishing strong for the 25-21 victory.
After the win it looked like Randolph could hang with the Panthers and it did for about the first 10 points from each side in the third set. Leading 10-8, Portville put together a six-point run to take control of the match 15-8.
From there it was back and forth, but the damage had already been done and with a 25-18 decision the Panthers were within one win of their 13th straight sectional title.
Needing another big response, Randolph was unable to deliver in the fourth set and the offense could only muster runs of two. With the struggles on serve receive and extending plays, Portville ended Randolph's Cinderella run with a 25-15 victory.
"It's hard," Johnson said about going against Portville. "They have a great program and I give them credit. I thought we came in mentally tough and we understood that we can't worry about that. When it's in a neutral location it helps a lot with that mental toughness when we play a great program. I'm proud of my girls, we came in and worked as hard as we could."
Setting up Shawley's offense was Aliza Hind with 19 assists and Tessa Brown provided another 14 assists, Hailey Farmer added four kills and Lucy Conley made two blocks for the Cardinals (12-8).
Portville (16-3) will look to continue its state title defense Tuesday in a New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class C subregional against the Section V overall winner at Clarence High School. The Rochester area's champion will be determined tonight when C1 champion LeRoy (15-1) plays C2 champion Perry (17-2).
Leading the Panthers to that subregional Thursday were Gaitley Maiolo with 16 kills, two assists, two aces and 16 digs; Leigha Stives had 10 kills, an ace and eight digs; Marissa Carls dealt 45 assists, 10 digs and three kills; Emily Scanlon delivered 11 kills and a block; Ava Scanlon provided 10 kills, two assists, 14 digs and a block; Lainee Thompson made five aces and six digs; and Ana Haynes added six aces, 20 digs and two assists.