No. 1 Senecas too much for Polar Bears

ELIDA – Regardless of the 22 wins Hardin Northern had entering the Division VII regional semifinal against No. 1 Calvert, coach Aly Breece admitted her team hadn't seen competition like the Senecas presented Thursday night at Elida Fieldhouse.In the end, the Senecas flexed their muscles in a 25-12, 25-11, 25-10 victory."We play 22 games during the season and we don't see a team like Calvert," Breece said. "It's hard to prepare and get ready for that kind of competition – we're trying … we're trying to amp up our schedule so we can prepare for the tournament season, but I thought my girls did what they could."I just asked them to empty the tank tonight and I think that's what they did tonight."The Polar Bears (22-4) played in their first regional since 2006, while it was the Senecas' ninth straight.Calvert (25-0) led early and often as Gracie Miller's wicked serve gave HN trouble as she compiled five first-set aces, including four in a row to give the Senecas an 8-1 advantage.Then Calvert cruised to a 20-9 lead before ending things in the first set.Calvert wasn't as sharp in the second set as HN was within 4-3 after a Hope Ribley kill and then within 8-6 after a Ribley ace, but then Calvert began to pull away behind kills from Miller, Hope Waire and Bella Borgio, who put an exclamation point on the second set with a thunderous kill."We told the girls like in the second set nobody has to be perfect," Senecas coach Lori Rombach said. "We just have to stay together. I think a lot of the time athletes aspire to have a perfect game with no serving errors, no hitting errors, but that's just not the game of volleyball. We stayed together and that's what I like to see."Calvert controlled things from start to finish in the third set with leads of 8-1, 13-4 and 20-7.HN is losing a core of seniors who started this recent run of winning volleyball, but Breece is excited to see where her younger players can take the program."We have six seniors with excellent leadership and any time we needed to get locked in they were there," Breece said. "We are losing a whole group who started this rhythm for us and it's going to leave some big shoes to fill."We have an incoming freshmen class with 10-13 kids, who also won their league, but I'm going to have to rely on some leadership from our Bacon twins (Baylie and Addy) to kind of lead our team next year.