Its been a season long check list of milestones for the St. Patrick volleyball team.
They can check another one off the list.
This one being their first ever regional tournament win, taking care of Pendleton County Tuesday at The Shamrock, 3-0 (25-22, 25-19, 25-16) and advancing to Wednesday’s semifinals of the 10th Region tournament.
The Lady Saints did it by doing what they’ve done best all season, minimizing their errors and taking advantage of opponents’ errors.
Pendleton County committed 42 errors in the contest to the Lady Saints 23, something that continues to prove the formula of St. Patrick’s success.
“When we played them last time that’s pretty much what happened. That was our strategy coming in. That’s really been the secret to our success all year,” Lady Saints coach Chuck Hamilton said. “We’ve got three secrets to success and I can’t tell those because I don’t want everybody to hear it. Really it’s no big secret, it’s just playing well together and these girls have done it. They’re unselfish, they don’t care who gets the kill, who gets the assist, who gets the dig. Everybody goes for it. So proud of this bunch. This is special.”
Closing out sets helped too. Runs of 4-1, 7-0 and 5-0 in each set earned the Lady Saints the straight set victory, a team that hasn’t shown the moment is too big, rattling off their 20th win of the season to improve to 20-2, also a best in program history.
“We’ve been doing that all year. Why I even hesitate to call timeouts, they work themselves out of it. They’re resilient, they don’t worry, they don’t panic. I think the coaches and fans panic a whole lot more then they do,” Hamilton said.
The first set had St. Patrick squander away a 19-10 lead, the Lady Cats tying things up at 21 after one of Allison Aulick’s game-high eight kills in the match.
But three of 16 errors in the set followed for Pendleton before Makenna Roush closed out the set with an ace to give them a 1-0 lead.
The second set was played much tighter throughout, neither side leading by more than five, Pendleton again climbing back from a 11-6 hole to eventually take a 19-18 lead. But the Lady Saints stayed on the attack with kills from Roush and two from Jaclyn Stewart with three Pendleton errors to give them a 6-0 run and a 24-19 lead.
Roush again closed out the set with an ace to give the Lady Saints a 2-0 lead in the match.
Pendleton was able to jump out to a lead in the third set at 10-8, but it wouldn’t be seen again after a Lady Saints 4-0 run from there. An 11-3 St. Patrick run gave them a 19-13 lead and just six points from the semifinals.
Pendleton was able to put some pressure on by getting three of the next four points, but five straight from the Lady Saints punched their ticket into Wednesday’s semifinals.
“We had a unique opportunity playing here and we know it will probably never happen again. We have to take advantage of this opportunity. I know Pendleton County didn’t like playing us here and I can’t really blame them, but that’s the way the chips fell. We took advantage of it, got off to a good start and man I can’t say enough about them. I just like sitting and watching them play sometimes,” Hamilton said.
Wednesday night will be their toughest test of the season yet, when Campbell County comes to downtown Maysville to face the Lady Saints. The Lady Camels have won the last two regional titles and will feature size that the Lady Saints have maybe seen but once this year, when they lost to Bishop Brossart in the All “A” regional championship, another first in program history for the Lady Saints with an appearance in that game.
“Campbell is Campbell. Usually almost every single year the 10th Region championship game is Campbell and Scott. They’re the 37th District Championship game and the 10th Region Championship game. All we can do is hope to pull off the upset of the century,” Hamilton said.
Wednesday’s match will begin at 6:30 p.m.
In Tuesday’s match, Mercedes Hedgecock and Jaclyn Stewart led the Lady Saints with seven kills apiece for their 23 in the game. St. Patrick tallied seven aces, Stewart and Roush with two apiece to just four service errors.
Pendleton was led by Allison Aulick with eight of their 26 kills, Katelin Aulick getting two of the team’s three aces in the match.
The Lady Cats season closes at 12-7 as they were setting out to do what St. Patrick did on Tuesday, win their first regional tournament game in program history. They’re now 0-6 all-time in the 10th Region tournament.
LADY SAINTS DEF. LADY CATS, 3-0 (25-22, 25-19, 25-16)
Match Stats
Kills: Pendleton 26 (A. Aulick 8), St. Patrick 23 (Hedgecock, Stewart 7)
Aces: Pendleton 3 (K. Aulick 2), St. Patrick 7 (Stewart, Roush 2)
Errors: Pendleton 42, St. Patrick 23
Service Errors: Pendleton 4, St. Patrick 4
Records: Pendleton County 12-7, St. Patrick 20-2
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