SPARTA – Having just completed its eighth consecutive undefeated season in league play, the Highland girls volleyball team began its quest to return to the state title game for the second straight season.
The Scots rolled to a 25-8, 25-4, 25-15 victory over Utica in the second round of the Division II district tournament on Oct. 21. They advance and will host 11th-seeded Lakewood on Oct. 29 at 6 p.m.
Highland, which moves back to the Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference next season, finished its run in the Knox Morrow Athletic Conference with four outright titles and a 56-0 record.
With seven returning letter winners, Highland coach Rob Terrill believes experience is an asset with his club.
“We talked about what it takes to get there,” Terrill said. “They’re veterans, so they know it takes hard work. They’re a really good group of kids. They work really hard, they want to win, they know how to win. They’re not cocky, they just want to go out and play and that’s what’s fun about them.”
The second-seeded Scots (21-1) never trailed in each of the three sets against 14th-seeded Utica (4-17).
“We haven’t played in almost a week and now we won’t play for another week,” Terrill said. “Now is the time, you either get better or somebody else does.”
The Scots have five players with 100 or more kills this season: Kendall Stover, Makenna Belcher, Ashlynn Belcher, Abby Eusey and Cassady Sagar. All of them were key players on last year’s state runner-up team that went 25-5.
“Their job is to make sure that the others are comfortable too,” Terrill said. “They’ve been there before where they were the newbie on the block. They’ve done a great job of incorporating the younger kids we’ve got in our rotation and five are (returning letter winners), so they made sure during the season to keep them going.”
The emergence of sophomore Zoya Winkelfoos as a setter has allowed Terrill to switch up his formation, giving Ashlynn Belcher a chance to hit.
“We needed Ashlynn to hit a little more this year,” Terrill said. “Ashlynn will be approaching 2,000 assists this year and she missed half of last year with a broken foot. We’ve been running a 6-2 this year, so she’s only been getting half the opportunities from other years and she’s still gonna get close to 2,000 assists.
"Zoya does a great job as well. So we found the opportunity to get Ashlynn some swinging and get Zoya on the floor as well.”
Utica closed out its first campaign under coach Lisa Ritzer, whose team won two out of its last three to finish the regular season. Ritzer said one thing really hampered her team this season.
“Our biggest obstacle this year was confidence,” she said. “We were trying to (get them to) overcome not believing in themselves. So I think those last few games, they kind of started to buy in and believe.”
