Eagles win in five sets to earn second consecutive Final Four berth

Avon’s volleyball team is headed to Dayton for the Division II state Final Four for the second year in a row, following Saturday’s thrilling five-set victory over Wadsworth in a regional final at Streetsboro High School. The Eagles, 25-1, defeated the Grizzlies in a matchup of one-loss teams that both reached the Final Four last year and then lost in their respective state semifinal matches. Avon edge Wadsworth by the scores of 25-14, 22-25, 25-22, 23-25, 15-11. Next on the schedule is a rematch with Magnificat, the only team to defeat the Eagles this season. Magnificat, 22-4 and ranked No. 2 in the state coaches poll, will play No. 3 Avon at 6:30 p.m. November 8 at Wittenberg University in Springfield. Against Wadsworth, coach Kara Coffman said two things stood out for the Eagles—the combined play of seniors Lily Hamilton, Londyn Stone and Bethany Sherwood, and the play of sophomore libero Ally Brediger. Hamilton had 20 kills, 30 assists, 16 digs and three aces. Stone had 21 kills and 16 digs, and Sherwood had 17 kills and four blocks. “First of all, our big three were on,” said Coffman. “Lily, Londyn and Bethany had 58 kills between them, which is just insane.” Brediger spearheaded the defensive effort with 34 digs and 37 serve receptions with only three receiving errors. “Ally Brediger was just amazing,” said Coffman. “She’s extremely coachable. She had a little bit of a rough match on Thursday, but, luckily, we had practice on Friday, and she’s so coachable that you give her the fix, and she does it right away.” Stone had 28 serve receptions without a single error, and Caroline Busold added 10 serve receptions as the Eagles have worked very hard in recent weeks on improving that aspect of their play. “Our serve receive was very solid,” said Coffman. “That definitely was a difference between us and Wadsworth. They were passing a lot of ones yesterday, and we were passing a lot of threes. So, we were in system, and they were out of system a lot.” The Eagles came out firing on all cylinders from the opening whistle, taking the first set, 25-14. However, the remainder of the match was close and tense as the teams traded sets throughout. This was the second five-set match of the season for Avon, which needed five to defeat Olmsted Falls in mid-September. Wadsworth had played two other five-set matches this season, losing to Mentor and defeating Twinsburg. Coffman said she knew before the final set even started that her team would take the victory. “I just knew, going into that fifth set, that we had it and they were not going to make this their last match,” she said. “They were ready to fight. They really focused up. The girls just really locked in. We talked about playing to win, in the sense that in the fourth set I thought we played it very safe at the end. In the fifth set, we knew we had to play harder and earn every single one of those 15 points.” According to Coffman, the fact that Avon next faces the only team to hand them a loss this season has the Eagles sitting right where they want to be as the underdog. Magnificat edged Olmsted Falls in their regional final in a five-set match Saturday, so it very easily could have been the Bulldogs that would be next on the schedule. “I think my girls are excited about the rematch,” said Coffman. “I don’t think they’d be as excited if they were playing Olmsted Falls for the third time. We talked at the beginning of the tournament about how we haven’t really been in the underdog position for two years, and that was a position that we thrived in and that we loved.”