LOVELAND β Badin’s girls volleyball team needed every bit of its postseason experience Wednesday night to avoid an early tournament exit.
The Rams overcame an up-and-down performance against Mercy McAuley, pulling out a 3-2 victory in a Division III second-round matchup Oct. 21 at Loveland High School.
Junior Addie Pfiester and senior Emily O’Brien each recorded 12 kills, while senior libero Carley Nadler collected 25 digs to help Badin survive a determined effort from the Wolves.
Badin (14-9) advanced to Monday’s district semifinal against Goshen (22-1), scheduled for 5 p.m. at Loveland.
The Rams won the opening set 25-13 before Mercy McAuley responded with a 25-20 second-set victory. Badin took the third set 25-13, but the Wolves answered again with a 25-15 win to force a fifth.
Badin eventually prevailed in the deciding set, overcoming several tense moments to extend its season.
Rams coach Courtney Weinheimer said she was encouraged by her team’s ability to regroup after a difficult fourth set.
“Usually, you come out and if you lose the fourth set, it’s really hard to get the momentum back in the fifth set,” Weinheimer said. “So I was very proud of them for being able to come out and stay calm, cool and collected and fight.”
Pfiester played a significant role Wednesday, finishing with five blocks and five service aces to complement her 12 kills. She also posted a team-best .345 hitting efficiency.
O’Brien contributed 24 digs and four aces, giving Badin another strong all-around performance. Junior Holly Jung added 11 kills, while Annie Mathews finished with eight and Brooklyn Johnson contributed seven.
Junior Caitlin Brown distributed 34 assists and recorded 13 digs. Junior Ava Treadway added 20 assists, and sophomore Grace Sackenheim chipped in 12 digs and two aces.
The Rams finished with 54 kills, 103 digs, 12 aces and eight blocks.
Despite those numbers, Pfiester acknowledged that Badin struggled to maintain its level of play throughout the match.
“It was definitely like a roller coaster of emotions, for sure,” Pfiester said. “I feel like we’re a pretty inconsistent team, for sure. But I feel like when we’re all playing together, it goes really well for us, and we can do really big things.”
That inconsistency nearly proved costly against a Mercy McAuley team that entered the matchup with a 5-19 record.
Badin had swept the Wolves during a Sept. 5 regular-season meeting, but Wednesday’s rematch presented a much greater challenge.
Weinheimer believed her players may have underestimated their opponent because of the earlier result and Mercy McAuley’s record.
“I think our girls saw their record, and they’re like, ‘Oh, well, we beat them in three, and they’re 4-18,'” Weinheimer said. “And I was like, ‘No, no, no, no, no. You have to come in because this is win or go home.'”
The Rams’ struggles in the second and fourth sets reinforced that message.
“When it comes down to it, that second and fourth set, we mentally gave up,” Weinheimer said. “And we can’t do that against any team in the tournament.”
Badin found a way to respond when the match reached its most critical stage.
Pfiester recalled looking at the scoreboard during the fifth set and recognizing that the Rams needed to raise their intensity.
“It’s win or go home,” she said. “We have to dial it in, and especially a tournament game, I think we all looked at the score, and we were like, it’s 9 to 7. Like, we need to get going here.”
Nadler faced a different kind of pressure.
As one of Badin’s seniors, she understood that a loss would bring her high school volleyball career to an immediate end.
“It was really nerve-wracking, but I’m sure everybody was nervous,” Nadler said. “It was really all of our focus to just stay in the moment and show up and do our jobs, because we knew that if we let our nerves get to us, then our gameplay would crumble.”
The emotion intensified as the fifth set progressed.
“It really hit me the fifth set,” Nadler said. “I really did not want to lose, because I do not want it to be over. And so I was giving it my all to play one more match, and hopefully more.”
Badin will now turn its attention to a Goshen squad that has lost just once this season.
“I think they learned that they can’t take anything for granted,” Weinheimer said. “We kept saying, ‘OK, it’s a set to 15. Win or go home. Those are your choices.’
“And we wanted to win. They wanted to win, and you saw that in the score. It was a battle all the way to 15.”
