Eastern headed to 8th straight district final

WELLSTON — Two out of three weren’t bad, but even a small lapse in Game 3 couldn’t prevent the Eastern volleyball team from advancing to its eighth district championship game in as many years on Wednesday night during a convincing 25-5, 25-8, 25-17 straight-game triumph over Leesburg Fairfield in a Division IV district semifinal at Wellston High School.

The second-seeded Lady Eagles (21-3) cruised to a comfortable 2-0 match advantage after wire-to-wire wins in games one and two by a combined 37 points, then stormed out to an 8-1 lead in Game 3 against the sixth-seeded Lady Lions (5-13).

Fairfield, thanks to a few mental breakdowns by EHS, went on an 8-1 run to knot things up at nine apiece, then tied things up again at 10 and 11 before taking its first lead of the contest at 12-11. The Lady Lions went on to claim leads of two points on four different occasions, the last of which came at 16-14.

From that point, Eastern reeled off the next eight points for a 22-16 edge and won three of the next four points to wrap up the straight-game triumph.

The Lady Eagles will face top-seeded Portsmouth Clay (17-6) in the D-4 district final on Saturday at 4 p.m. Clay defeated South Webster in the first district semifinal held at WHS by a 26-24, 21-25, 25-14, 20-25, 15-12 margin.

Afterward EHS coach Howie Caldwell was a little disappointed by the letdown in the finale, but also made one very important point about this team so far in the tournament. In two postseason matches and six possible games, tonight’s Game 3 was the only time that an opponent managed to score double-digits against the Green and White.

With that said, it was truly hard for the seventh-year mentor to be completely worked up about the final contest. After all, the Lady Eagles are one win away from the school’s sixth regional berth.

“These girls have played at a pretty high level so far in this tournament and they’ve done a good job of putting teams away early, so it’s really hard to pick them apart for one bad stretch in six games,” Caldwell commented. “It’s nice to be playing in another district final, but that’s not why we came here. We came here to win a district title. These girls know they didn’t play real well in the final game tonight and I’m sure that they will have their game faces on this Saturday.”

Eastern also defeated Miller in the sectional final last week by a 25-8, 25-9, 25-7 margin.

The Lady Eagles stormed out to an 8-3 cushion in the opening game, then Lauren Cummings reeled off 13 straight service points to give the hosts a commanding 20-3 cushion. EHS increased its lead to 20 points (24-4) before wrapping up Game 1 by a 25-5 count.

Sami Cummins reeled off nine straight service points for Eastern in Game 2 for the early 9-0 edge, but FHS countered with a 5-2 run to pull within 11-5. The guests never came closer the rest of the way, as the Lady Eagles scored six straight for a 17-5 lead before closing Game 2 on an 8-3 charge for the 17-point decision — and two-games-to-none advantage.

Cummings led the Eastern service attack with 18 points, followed by Cummins with 15 points and Britney Morrison with nine points. Beverly Maxson was next with seven points, while the duo of Brenna Holter and Karissa Connolly each added two points.

Kasey Turley led the net attack with 13 kills, followed by Jamie Swatzel with eight points and a team-best two blocks. Holter chipped in seven kills, Maxson added six kills and Morrison also had five kills for the victors. Connolly also had one kill.

Caldwell — who is now 12-1 alltime in district tournament matches during his seven years at EHS — admits that this team has had it a little easy so far this postseason. He also knows that is something that will change drastically from here on out, starting with Portsmouth Clay this weekend.

“You can get by with some things against teams early on in the tournament, but the further you go in the postseason — the tougher the competition gets,” Caldwell said. “When you get this far, you had better bring your ‘A’ game every night for every point.

“Saturday’s game is going to be a very good game, so we are going to have to lace them up and be ready. We definitely can’t give away four or five straight points on mental errors and expect to win.”