Catholic sweeps Apollo for district title three-peat

October 24, 2019 | 11:41 pm

Updated October 25, 2019 | 3:17 am

Owensboro Catholic won their third straight 9th District championship Thursday. | Photo by Ryan Richardson

The Lady Aces won their third straight 9th District volleyball title, and they made it look fairly easy by sweeping Apollo 3-0 (25-19, 25-18, 25-23) in Thursday night’s tournament championship.

Owensboro Catholic head coach Brian Hardison said the girls were extremely focused as they prepared for the match, and it was their goal to win another title without dropping a set.

“We’ve had two really good, very productive practices,” he said. “We talked the whole time about coming out with pure energy. They were saying they wanted to do a three-peat in three (sets). That was a little bit of the motivation. They came out and looked good during warmups.”

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For photos from the game, click here.
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The E-Gals held leads in each set, but they couldn’t string together enough points to pull away. Starter Anslee Hopewell was sidelined with an injury, adding an extra hurdle to try to combat a high-powered Catholic offense.

“Catholic has a great team this year,” said Apollo head coach Mary Howard. “They’ve got a ton of firepower. We knew this was going to be a tough match coming in. We kind of had to pull together and try to man the ship. We just came up a little short on some things, but I saw some good things tonight.”

The Lady Aces were in sync from the start, using a big presence at the net and an improved service game to take control early.

After going up 12-8 in the first set, Catholic kept their distance the rest of the way and won the opening frame off a booming hit by Cecilia Clemens.

Apollo worked their way to a 14-11 advantage in the second set, by the Lady Aces went on a 9-0 run behind Clemens’ service game. The E-Gals fought back late but couldn’t overcome an eight-point deficit.

After a pair of kills by Belle Wright helped Catholic pull even with Apollo at 15-15 in the third set, neither team led by more than two points the rest of the way. The Lady Aces won the final two points to finish off the sweep.

“The girls performed — you can’t take that away from anybody on the court,” Hardison said. “Every one of them did their part. I told them together you win, and that’s exactly what they did.”

Clemens finished with 41 assists, adding five kills, four blocks, three digs and three aces. Also contributing to the win were Wright (14 kills, 5 digs, 2 blocks), Cassidy Towery (10 kills, 5 digs, 2 blocks), Madeline Castlen (9 kills, 5 blocks, 3 digs), Jayden Bickett (10 digs, 2 assists), Allie Hamilton (7 digs, 3 kills), Jenna Glenn (8 digs, 2 aces) and Cate Sights (6 kills).

Leading the way for Apollo were Tallie Satterfield (22 assists, 6 blocks, 6 digs), Maddi Boswell (7 kills, 6 blocks), Hallie Wilson (12 digs), Natalie Ewing (8 kills, 2 blocks), Valerie Gillim (7 digs) and Whitley Chambers (4 kills, 2 blocks).

Both teams advance to next week’s 3rd Region tournament, which will be held at Hancock County. The draw will be held Saturday morning.

Howard said the E-Gals just have to regroup and get back to what has been working for them in recent weeks.

“We have to continue the progress that we’ve made so far in this last third of the season,” she said. “Just executing defensively and offensively and just being able to make some bigger runs on teams. Tonight we just weren’t able to make the runs that we needed to.”

Hardison said his team is eager to keep going, and they hope they can make it out of the region tournament. Earlier this year, the Lady Aces won the All ‘A’ Region championship at Hancock County, so Hardison and his team are full of confidence as they make another trip there.

“They came out and got done what they wanted to get done,” he said of his players. “Now we want to move on. These girls want to go to state. We’ve already won one region there. Now we’re going to go try to win another one there.”


The All-9th District Team and Player of the Year — as voted on by coaches — was announced after the game.

9th District Player of the Year:
Cecilia Clemens – OCHS

Rest of All-9th District Team
(no particular order):
Hallie Wilson – AHS
Isabelle Wright – OCHS
Kloee Phelps – DCHS
Lainey Hayden – OHS
Whitley Chambers – AHS
Cassidy Towery – OCHS
Elizabeth Moore – DCHS
Krystell Pappas – OHS

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October 24, 2019 | 11:41 pm

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