Doves advance to quarterfinals with victory over Terrebone

After dropping the first game, St. Scholastica Academy came back to win the final three in an exciting, 22-25, 25-17, 25-20, 25-16, victory over Terrebonne in the regional round of the Division I state playoffs volleyball playoffs Wednesday at the Pontchartrain Center in Kenner.

The Lady Tigers season comes to an end at 33-7, while SSA (31-10) returned to the court last night for the quarterfinals against Mount Carmel.

St. Scholastica coach Danny Davis said the Lady Tigers are a quality club.

“Terrebonne is a good team, and we knew that going in,” Davis said. “Nobody’s going to show up with a 30-win plus season and expect to be a cakewalk. We knew we had to show up to play.”

In the first game, the Doves kept things close early on, but Terrebonne had a 12-10 lead and went on a 4-0 run to open up the advantage to 16-10.

SSA fought back and scored the next five-of-six points to trim the lead down to 17-15. Then the Lady Tigers went on a 3-1 spurt to make it 20-16.

Eventually, Terrebonne had a 24-20 lead. SSA avoided game point for two straight rallies, but the Lady Tigers took the opening contest, 25-22.

In the second game, the Doves’ play improved.

“We were very fortunate that after the first game our passing got better and that allowed Meghan (Clark) to open up the offense a little bit,” said coach Davis.

The second game was filled with runs. The Lady Tigers scored the first three points and then St. Scholastica tallied the next eight points and started with a kill from Audrey Gitz, who finished with nine.

With the Doves seemingly holding a comfortable 8-3 lead, the Lady Tigers battled back for five in a row to tie the contest at 8-8.

SSA’s Shelby Fritscher, who had six aces, talked about the momentum shift.

“At first, everyone freaks out. After you calm down, you realize it’s a tie ballgame, 0-0,” Fritscher said.

SSA responded by running off six in a row to go up, 14-8. Christina Wurm and Kristi Harrison helped the spurt with kills.

Then Terrebonne came back with an 8-2 spurt and SSA saw its advantage trimmed to 17-16.

The Doves got back on offense when a Lady Tigers’ serve hit the net. Then Fritscher stepped to the service line and helped the Doves put up four in a row, upping the lead to 22-16. During the run, she had an ace.

Only a kill by Terrebonne’s Sierra Lyons stopped SSA’s momentum as the Doves soared, 25-17.

The third game was another close one throughout. The Doves trailed 12-9 but scored seven straight points and took a 16-12 lead. Terrebonne tallied two in a row, making it 16-14.

After that, SSA went on a 7-0 spurt and took a commanding 22-14 lead. The Lady Tigers battled back, but the Doves won, 25-20.

In the fourth game, St. Scholastica never trailed, In fact, the teams were tied just once at 1-1.

Terrebonne trimmed an 11-7 deficit to 14-13. After that, the Doves tallied 11 of the game’s final 14 points en-route to the victory.

Camille Walther led the Doves with 15 digs, and 10 kills. Meghan Clark dished out 31 assists. Harrison put down 10 kills for SSA. Sam Delahoussaye pulled up 15 digs for SSA.

For Terrebonne, Lyons had 20 kills. Danielle Liner handed out 25 assists, while Shelby Bourque had 19 digs.