District Volleyball: Avon Lake loses to Kenston

PARMA HTS. — Avon Lake wanted to join Southwestern Conference rivals Amherst, Avon and Olmsted Falls as district champions but came up a bit short Thursday night in the Division III final at Holy Name. No. 5-seeded Kenston battled its way to a four-set victory over No. 9 Avon Lake, 20-25, 25-22, 25-23, 25-17, to earn its Sweet 16 ticket to Mentor next week. The Shoregals finished 14-10 for the season. Kenston is 18-7. "What I said to the girls just now," Avon Lake coach Kristin Primozic said shortly after accepting the district runner-up trophy, " 'They saw the five seniors we had last season and kind of thought this season was, nope, it's a rebuilding season this year for Avon Lake. You proved everyone wrong. You came in, you fought.' "We didn't get this far last year." Fight they did. Kenston's Avari Amstutz finished with 21 kills and seemed to get stronger as the match wore on, but Avon Lake made her earn every one of those kills. The Shoregals were tough at the net, blocking several of Amstutz's powerful swings right back at her. It just wasn't enough. "She's very good," said Primozic. "She's a great player. I've seen her at club over the years coming from an east side team. She's a phenomenal player. "I was super-impressed with our defense. Our blocking, we worked really hard over the last week to be sure to get our block up and ready, leading with our hands. It really comes down to our offense. We were a little shaky on our offense. They made us work." Defense was the Shoregals' calling card. Sophomore libero Dani Hubert was all over the floor digging 40 balls and had plenty of help from junior Sophie Faltenovich (23 digs) and seniors Charlotte Preto (21) and Kendall Holley (20). Holley had 27 kills and senior Kendall Bondar had 16. Senior setter Emily Loeffler had 58 assists. Preto had three aces. Avon Lake won the first set by jumping in front early. The Shoregals built a 22-14 lead and withstood Kenston's last-ditch rally. However, the Bombers broke a tie at 11 in the second set with a four-point run and never relinquished the lead. In the third set, Avon Lake spotted Kenston a 15-4 lead only to come up a bit short on a late rally that had the deficit all the way down to 24-23 before the Bombers clinched it. Kenston rolled out to a 6-1 lead in the fourth set and led 21-14, winning the set and the match by simply matching the Shoregals point-for-point from there. "I definitely think we put a lot of effort in, super scrappy going for every ball," said Holley. "I think our downfall was a weak start in each set beside the first one. I think if we'd have started out a lot stronger, the match would have been a lot different. "We played really well defensively. We set up differently for each hitter. We watched a lot of film. We knew what they were going to do. I just think it was unforced errors that cost us the game, pretty much." Contact Tim Gebhardt at (440) 329-7135 or timothygeb@msn.com.