Volleyball: Senior-led Black River rebounds, sweeps Keystone

SULLIVAN TWP. — Black River is loaded with senior leadership, and it showed Thursday as the Pirates bounced back from a four-set loss to Columbia on Tuesday to sweep Keystone 25-20, 25-16, 25-16. They improved to 5-1 overall and 1-1 in the Lorain County League. The Wildcats are on the other end of the spectrum, with four freshmen getting significant playing time, so it's going to take Keystone some time to bring the youngsters. It dropped to 0-2, 0-2 and is still looking for its first set win. "All these seniors have been playing together since the seventh grade and maybe even longer," said Pirates senior Maryn Biddle, who finished with eight kills. "We've all grown up playing together and I think it's really helping us with our good start this year." Black River never trailed in the opening set, putting together several multiple-point runs as it battled through a slow-paced match to turn an 8-7 lead into a 20-10 advantage as junior Sydney Czarny picked up four kills in the 12-3 run. "Tonight was a little slower than what we have been playing this year," Black River coach Courtney Dieter said. "Keystone was able to slow things down, so there was a speed adjustment that we had to work out tonight. "I thought we did well trying to run a faster pace when we could. (Keystone) is a scrappy bunch and they are going to end up being a good volleyball team." The 'Cats finally took their first lead early in the second set following an ace from Ava Armitage and a kill from Makenzie Miller to go up 7-6. A couple of hitting miscues gave the lead back to the Pirates, who never lost it the rest of the way as Biddle picked up three more kills to go along with a couple of aces from Jenevieve Dieter and three kills by sophomore Olivia Bailey, with one being a block-kill. Keystone started off the final set with aces from freshman Tatum Holzhauer and Armitage to go along with four unforced errors by Black River for a 6-2 lead. Once again, though, the Pirates began putting together runs, including five straight service points from Czarny, who had a pair of aces to turn the lead back to Black River at 8-6. The only scoring run for Keystone came with Armitage serving for three points with another ace to cut the lead to 16-14, but the Pirates closed the match with a 9-2 run with five players getting a kill to go with a pair of Czarny aces. "I know we have the potential, and we have a lot of ability out there," Wildcats coach Jeff Schaef said. "It's not going to all come together at once, so we just have to keep working hard and believing in what we are doing." Contact James Brady at (440) 329-7135 or jbrady_ct@yahoo.com. Black River 3, Keystone 0 Keystone 20-16-16 Black River 25-25-25 KILLS — (K) Katie Linebrink 5, Kendall Crabeels 4, Makenzie Miller 3; (BR) Maryn Biddle 8, Sydney Czarny 6, Jenevieve Dieter 6. ACES — (K) Ava Armitage 3; (BR) Czarny 4, Dieter 2. BLOCK-KILL — (K) Bella Duelley 1; (BR) Biddle 1, Olivia Bailey 1.