Elyria Catholic drops thrilling five-set match in regional finals

ALLIANCE — Elyria Catholic took top-seeded Lake Catholic to the limit, but couldn't pull off the upset Saturday. The fourth-seeded Panthers, who are ranked third in Division IV by MaxPreps, rallied from a two-game deficit before falling 25-18, 26-24, 20-25, 24-26, 16-14 in a thrilling Region 13 final. This marks the third straight season the Cougars, ranked first in D-IV by MaxPreps, have eliminated Elyria Catholic (23-4) in the regional finals, with the previous two coming in D-V. The year 1993 remains alone on the Panthers' volleyball banner as the only year they advanced to the Final 4. "We knew it was going to be a really tough match going in and we just wanted to leave it all on the court," senior Ella Feskanich said. "Being a senior, I knew it was my last chance and I didn't really want it to end this way, but I know we gave it our best." Feskanich, a 5-foot-8 outside hitter, powered the Panthers with 20 kills and two aces, both team highs. Lake Catholic (23-4) advances to face Ottawa-Glandorf (23-3) in a state semifinal at Wright State University on Thursday. The Cougars are seeking a sixth straight state finals appearance and a fourth championship in five seasons. Elyria Catholic had Lake Catholic facing match point after the Cougars couldn't return a spike by Ari Dimacchia (17 kills, 20 digs) to give the Panthers a 14-13 lead, but Ahnna Bergant fired off the winning strike on the next three points to seal the victory. "Obviously, it wasn't the end result that we wanted," Dimacchia said. "I think we still fought hard in that. We were going at it the whole time, even though we didn't win." Dimacchia and Feskanich were the main beneficiaries of solid setting by Emilia Hirsch (18 assists) and Jessica Conner (14). Saturday's matchup was the rubber match between the two schools, who each won on their home court en route to sharing the North Coast Conference championship, along with Padua Franciscan. That familiarity fostered an intensely competitive match. "It definitely makes it a lot harder of a match, knowing exactly what they have and them knowing what we have," senior middle hitter Claire Petrus said. "It makes the rivalry mean even more (to face each year in the tournament). We split in the regular season and we were both really wanting to break that tie." Petrus had three blocks, one behind McKenna Mulgrew for the team lead. Elyria Catholic came out of the gates slow and never led in the first set. The Panthers cut the deficit down to 13-11 before Lake Catholic went on a 7-1 run to take a 20-12 lead. In the second game, the Panthers got to game-point with a 24-18 lead before Petrus led Elyria Catholic to score the next six points to tie the match. It looked like the Panthers were going to take a 25-24 lead until the officials called Elyria Catholic for hitting the ball four times, a decision that drew complaints from the Panthers' side. Having been down 2-0 to the Cougars last season in the regional final, Elyria Catholic refused to back down. "We just thought about what it felt like last year, leaving the gym sad," Petrus said. "We knew how hard we had worked for this match. We were thinking about how hard we wanted to go to state." The momentum gained from the end of the second game propelled the Panthers in the third game, only trailing briefly at 3-2, before taking control of the match by scoring the next eight points. The fourth game was back-and-forth throughout until Dimacchia helped secure the final two points. "We got really fired up," Dimacchia said. "We kept our energy and intensity really high, which helped us." Contact John Urchek at jurchek@medina-gazette.com.