Lady Cats Down Oswayo Valley In District Nine Class-A Volleyball Semifinal, Face Elk County Catholic For Title On Saturday (Posted 11/06/20)

(Images by Nate Girvan) Above: Korrin Burns, Adia Needham, Brenna Campbell and Jordan Best.

The homestanding Clarion Area Lady Cats downed the Oswayo Valley Green Wave, in the District Nine Class-A semifinals in straight sets 25-8, 25-10, 25-7 on Thursday (November 5th) and will now move on to face the Elk County Catholic Lady Crusaders for the district championship, tomorrow (Saturday, November 7th) at Kane. The match is set to start at 12:00 noon.

The semifinal match was one, in which the Lady Cats never trailed in any of the games. They had some crisp passing, great work at the net, some monster slams and strong setting.

The Lady Cats opened up to a 3-0 lead with Erica Selfridge serving. Kane broke serve and the Cats immediately returned the favor on a strong kill by Korrin Burns. Payton Simko went to the service line and delivered on four straight to move Clarion’s lead to 8-1.

Later, Burns had four service points moving the Lady Cats lead to ten points at 15-5. Both teams broke serve and then the Clarion lead was stretched to 19-6 after Jordan Best served for three straight.

The set ended with the Cats scoring five straight points with Erica Selfridge at the line aided by some great front line play. Burns had a kill, followed by Simko with a well-placed tip, a nice double-team block up front and Burns with another kill, setting the first set final at 25-8, Clarion.

The Lady Cats broke the Green Wave serve to open the second set and with four service points by Brenna Campbell and three by Burns after the teams traded service breaks, the Lady Cats moved out to a 9-1 lead. Later, Burns registered seven service points giving Clarion a 22-9 lead and after the teams traded service breaks, Best served for the final two, for the 25-10 win.

Selfridge opened the third set with five straight points on serve, followed shortly by a huge nine point service series by Campbell. Clarion now led 16-2. Burns and Best had two service points down the stretch and Selfridge finished it off with the final point of the night, giving the Lady Cats the 27-7 win in the third set to seal the match.

Burns, Campbell and Selfridge all had big matches, with Burns recording 16 points (3 aces), 21 kills, 5 digs and three blocks, Campbell had 14 points (4 aces), 39 assists and eight digs and Selfridge coming through with 13 points, 10 kills, 6 digs and a block.

The three are having great seasons and fine careers.

Campbell, a senior, currently has 2972 career assists, needing just 28 for 3,000. She has 553 assists, so far this season (fifth best in Pennsylvania (all Classifications), after registering 895 as a junior, 758 as a sophomore and 766 as a freshman.

Burns, a junior, has registered 975 career kills, needing only 25 more to reach the 1,000 kill milestone. She has 286 kills so far this season, following her freshman and sophomore seasons, where she registered 215 and 474 kills respectively.

Selfridge is leading Pennsylvania (all Classifications included) in kill percentage with a.481 and and Burns at .444 is fourth.

Best scored 7 points (2 aces), to go along with 2 assists and three digs. Simko had 4 points (1 ace), 7 kills and a block. Aryana Girvan registered 5 kills. Ava Kiser had two digs. Adia Needham registered a kill and four blocks and Brianna Pierce had one dig.

With the win the Lady Cats stand undefeated, at 20-0. They are the number one team in Class-A in the Pennsylvania Volleyball Coaches Association (PVCA) rankings as they have been all season long.

After the game, the Lady Cats honored Coach Shari Campbell with a ceremony for her 400th win as Lady Cat mentor.

Clarion held Oswayo Valley to only one return on many volleys throughout the contest. Coach Campbell said, “We definitely want to see that.”  

She was impressed with two of the Green Wave players in particular and with her own players defense. “I thought they passed pretty well. That’s a long trip they took. Their middle hitter, number 3, the West girl, is a formidable force, and their outside hitter.

“So we knew we would be facing them. But I really think that the two weeks of just practice is almost like a in a preseason/postseason. You can really see that we’ve honed in on some things and cleaned up and we’re playing some nice rhythmic volleyball.

“We need to continue to work on making our serves.”

(Thanks to Nate Girvan for his images. CONGRATULATIONS LADY CATS!!!!)