Bobcats Claim Fourth Straight District Nine Class-A Title, Open States At Home Against California

(Images by Nate Girvan: Above: 2021 District Nine Class-A Volleyball Champion Clarion Bobcats – Front row (L-R) Natalie Durish, Sophie Babington, Noel Anthony, Jordan Best, Gia Babington, Grace Ochs, Aryana Girvan and Bri Pierce. Back row (L-R) Head Coach Shari Campbell, Hadley Campbell, Taylor Alston, Payton Simko, Korrin Burns, Paola Lopez, Adia Needham, Coach Tracy Durish, and Coach Sammi Beichner.)

The Clarion Area Bobcats are the 2021 District Nine Class-A Volleyball Champions, their fourth straight championship.

The number one seeded Bobcats downed the number three seeded Oswayo Valley Green Wave 3-0 (25-9, 25-19, 25-10), on Thursday (November 4th), at Elk County Catholic High School. As the District Champions, Clarion will now host the California Trojans, the number three team out of District 7/WPIAL, on Tuesday, November 9th).

Korrin Burns opened the match with a kill on Oswayo Valley’s serve. Then Noel Anthony registered four service points, to give the Cats a 5-0 lead. After both sides traded service, Burns served for five points for a 11-1 lead. And later, with Clarion holding 19-8 edge, Burns had a kill on an Oswayo Valley serve and then served for four more points, moving to set point at 24-8. Oswayo broke service, but Clarion secured the win, breaking serve on another Burns kill. Payton Simko and Aryana Girvan had also had kills in the set, for the Bobcats who were strong at the net all night.

Girvan opened set two with two service points. But several exchanges later Avery Kellert had two service points to give the Green Wave the first of two leads they would have in the match, at 5-4. From that point the score was tied four times, the last at 10-all, with Clarion, breaking service and taking the lead at 11-10.

With the Bobcats up 12-11, Adia Needham had a kill to break Oswayo Valley’s serve. She moved to the service line for four more points, giving Clarion a six-point, 17-11 lead. Oswayo fought back and were trailing by just three, 20-17, but Clarion broke service, followed by three service points by Grace Ochs to move to set point, at 24-17. After two points by the Green Wave, Burns had a kill for the finisher, in the hard fought 25-19, second set.

The best was saved for last. Oswayo’s Carrie Drummond opened the third set with a service point. But after another kill by Burns tied the match, the crowd got to witness something I can describe as nothing less than amazing. In all the years I’ve covered Volleyball, I can never recall seeing a display from the service line that I saw from Anthony, on this night. As most readers know, you need twenty-five points to win (unless tied at 24, then you must win by two).

Anthony, as the saying goes, “with ice water in her veins,” had two impressive runs. The first was a five point run, moving the lead from 2-1 to 6-1. The second came after Oswayo moved to within one, at 11-10 on two service points by Bridget Delong and then Burns breaking serve with another kill to make it 12-10, Bobcats. Oswayo never got to serve again, as Anthony reeled off thirteen straight points, the last an ace to secure the championship with a 25-10 third set victory.

Clarion’s other points in the set were all on service breaks. So, catch this, Anthony scored every one of the service points, served for 18 of the 25 points and the last thirteen of the set/match. She would be the first to say that it wasn’t only her, as she had teammates contributing kills, digs and blocks, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

So, as has been a major theme on this season’s Bobcats, as in the past, TEAM was vividly on display in that unbelievable set. Every girl on the court and the rest of the team, who worked in practice to make everyone else better, can take special satisfaction in sharing with Noel in something, that I for sure have never seen before, nor expect to ever see again.

Bobcat Stats: In addition to her 23 points (3 aces), Anthony also contributed 29 assists, 4 kills and six digs. Burns had 23 kills, 10 points (5 aces) and two digs.

Needham contributed 4 points (1 ace) and a kill. Ochs scored 5 points and had one dig. Girvan had 2 points, a dig and four kills. Jordan Best scored 2 points (1 ace), dished out two assists and provided five digs. Simko registered 7 kills, an assist and a dig.

Coach Shari Campbell had this to say about Anthony’s big night at the line, “Noel has a great serve. She has a lot of power behind it and tonight she just controlled it. And you could see what she could do with a little bit of control behind that power.” And the whole team. “I think we controlled from the service line. I thought our offense played great.”     

Coach Campbell singled out two Oswayo Valley players for what they brought to the court. “They have some great hitters, over there. 3 (Jayden Brabham) and 8 (Avaree Kellert) are really offensive players, so we knew we had our work cut out for us.”

She felt the Cats responded to the challenge well. “I thought we blocked well also, which is one of the things we wanted to be able to try to contain them at the net.”   

The Bradford Era sportswriter Jesse Kolodkin asked Coach Campbell what she said to her team after Oswayo Valley came out with something different in the second set. She said, ” Well, I think we came out with something different, because that happened. They put some pressure on. They are a good team. They’re not going to not put some pressure on. I think they responded. And we sat back. It kind of seemed like we could have them lose for us. That’s never a good situation. Sometimes it takes a while to get out of that. . . If you take that approach, that’s going to happen.”

Kolodkin mentioned Burns saying, “It seemed like every time she went up to spike, it was a point. Coach Campbell said, “Yea, Korrin is a great all-around player; she’s a four year starter, she’s our floor captain and we expect nothing (less) than what you see there. So we just keep wanting her to get better, each game she plays.”

The Era writer then asked about how she keeps the team up, with “having not lost in a while as they go deeper and deeper in the playoffs.” Campbell stated, ” Last night’s practice was pretty rough and I got on them. We were pushing and they were huffing and puffing, and I was like, ‘Maybe I pushed them too far. And I was a little bit worried coming into here. But that’s what we do. We make our practice gym pretty stressful. We make our practice gym a place where we push to get better.

“Right now, during the playoffs, is where you see huge growth from match to match and what happens in confidence and these kids’ ability to play the game is slowing the game down with their eyes, because of the confidence. We just try to maximize on that and teach them new things real quick, so that they are a new team the next time they come out.”

Kolodkin asked about how big being at home for the first state playoff match would be. “Huge, huge. We’ve been in places like DuBois and Warren, even Union, they turn off the lights and they introduce the starting lineups. So we’ve been in some great environments. I’d love to see them bring that environment to our own home gym, like that. It’s just great to feel some crowd energy this year. So we’ll really take advantage of that and we’ll really enjoy that.”  

I asked Coach Campbell, if it was getting old hat, with four in a row. “No, it’s not old hat. You just enjoy every moment and be proud of it. This is brand new for some of these kids. Our freshmen are like, ‘Four of what?’ I’m like, ‘We had to tell them.’ You just don’t ever look past anything, because it takes its timing to get there. So, every little thing that you achieve, for the work that they’ve put in, you want to celebrate.”

Keep enjoying the ride Bobcats!!!!   

(Thanks to Nate Girvan for his images.)