Cardinals are semi-state bound

For only the second time in school history, the Seton Catholic Cardinals have advanced to the semi-state in volleyball.

Playing on a neutral court at Elwood High School, on Saturday, Oct. 26, the Cardinals swept the Rossville Hornets in straight sets to advance to the Frankfort semi-state where they will face the Faith Christian Eagles on Saturday, Nov. 2, in a 10 a.m. match. 

The Cardinals set the tone for the match by dominating the Hornets in the first set. The Cards jumped out 3-0 and never trailed. The Hornets cut their deficit to 12-10 before the Cardinals went on a 13-4 run to win the set 25-14. Bryn VanVleet had 10 kills. 

In the second set the Hornet defense tried to adjust to slow VanVleet and other Cardinals stepped up. The Cardinals took a 5-0 lead to open the set, before the Hornets came back to tie the score at 11-11 and took their first lead of the match at 12-11. After ties at 12 and 13 the Cardinals gradually pulled away to win the set 25-20. Bella Cornell was the floor leader during the Cardinal run.  

The Hornets took an early 3-0 lead to open the third set. The Cards pulled even at 3-3. The match was tied at 4, 5 and 7 before the Cardinals took the lead for good and cruised to a 25-17 win to close out the match. VanVleet ended the third set with nine kills and three aces. Freshmen Jolie Scherschel and Taryn Tremain both delivered key kills to keep the Hornets at bay. 

VanVleet, a Cleveland State commit, proved again with her performance that she is among the elite players in the state, but she talked about her teammates after the match.

“I love my teammates and that makes it easy for me to have fun on the court,” VanVleet said. “Our setters are amazing. They are talented and they know what they are doing. I can’t kill the ball if they don’t set me up. This is a team sport and I could not ask for better teammates. We are thrilled to be in the semi-state and we don’t care who we play. It is up to us. If we play at our best level we can play with any team.” 

Cardinal head coach Emily Tremain said it was exciting to still be playing. After dominating the first set, the second set was much closer. Tremain explained why. “You can only play on adrenaline for so long and then you start to tire,” Tremain said. “We kept pushing them to play through it. We did not want to play four or five sets. Our passing was very good and our defense was excellent. We have improved over the course of the season and learned from our losses. We are peaking at the right time.”

Seton Catholic (26-8)   25   25   25

Rossville (21-12)          14   20   17