By FRED KRONER
fred@sjodaily.com
Volleyball teams from St. Joseph-Ogden and Heritage advanced into regional championship matches at their respective sites on Tuesday.
SJ-O (28-3) defeated Bismarck-Henning/Rossville-Alvin 25-8, 25-17 in a Class 2A semifinal match on the Spartans’ court.
Heritage (23-6) topped Chrisman 25-17, 25-17 in Danville Schlarman’s Class 1A regional.
The Spartans’ attack was spearheaded by Rylee Walsh and Emily Bigger, who delivered 11 and 10 assists, respectively. They each had two aces, as did Bree Trimble.
Trimble led all players with 13 digs.
Katelyn Berry (six kills) and Lacey Kaiser (four kills) were the SJ-O offensive leaders.
B-H/R-A ends the season with a 15-14 record.
In tonight’s regional finale at home, the Spartans put their 18-match winning streak on the line against Arthur-Lovington/Atwood-Hammond (23-11). SJ-O is seeking its fifth regional crown in the sport in six years.
With two more wins this season, the Spartans would hit the 30-win mark for the second time in more than a decade.
Heritage swept Chrisman (5-20) in the regional semifinals to move into the finals at Schlarman against Armstrong-Potomac (19-14).
Aliya Holloman had four blocks and Gracyn Allen had 12 digs to lead the Hawks.
Heritage is chasing ts fourth regional title in the past eight years. In the past 25 years, only one Heritage volleyball team has won more matches than this year’s squad. The 2011 team was 24-12.
Oakwood (24-10) played two postseason matches this week.
The Comets took care of Hoopeston Area (3-26) 25-13, 25-4 on Monday at SJ-O.
Katelyn Young had 11 kills and three blocks.
Adding four kills apiece were Alyssa Romito and Kerrigan Shafer. McKenzie Doan totaled 14 assists and Paiton Frerichs served three aces.
One night later, A-L/A-H topped the Comets in the semifinals, 25-21, 16-25, 25-19, halting Oakwood’s winning streak at 11 matches.
Doan ended the season with a 33-assist performance.
Young pounded 19 kills to go with four blocks.
Shafer added eight kills. Doan also landed two aces.
For the season, Young was the team’s kills leader (235) and amassed the most blocks (40).
Doan led in assists (523) and aces (56). Shafer registered 158 kills and 34 blocks.
