Willard repeats as district champions

KALIDA — Leah Weiss had no interest in losing the first set. With her team facing two set points, the Willard junior took over with three kills and a block to help the Crimson Flashes go up early. Willard never trailed the rest of the night, topping Otsego 27-25, 25-18, 25-20 in a Division V district championship match at Kalida High School. "It means so much. We lost a lot from last year," Weiss said. "We knew it was going to be hard coming into it. We're excited and ready for the next match." The Crimson Flashes improved to 22-3 and will play at 6 p.m. Wednesday in a regional semifinal at the Elida Fieldhouse. Willard awaits the winner of Marion Pleasant (23-1) and Johnstown-Monroe (17-7), who play at 10 a.m. Saturday in Granville. "We were coming to a new gym and they had already played here," Willard coach Ashley Bond said. "We hadn't played here. We had to drive seems like 10 hours to get here. Everything was kind of against us. Then we looked up in the gym and it was our colors. "It was our gym and we were ready to go." The Knights (15-9) led by as much as 12-5 early in the first set as Willard got off to a slow start. The Flashes started to chip away at the lead, tying the set at 14. That came following an ace from Weiss, block from Teagan Schaffer and kill from Mya Stephens. Otsego righted the chip, going up 19-15 when Willard committed an error. The teams went back and forth until a kill from Otsego's Vayda Schmidt put the Knights up 24-22. From there, it was all Weiss. She hit consecutive kills then stuffed a block for a 25-24 Willard lead. A kill from Kayla McBride tied the set before the Flashes went back up 26-25 on a Weiss kill. A rotation error on Otsego gave Willard the point and opening set. "When we get it within three points, I thought we had this," Bond said. "We had been playing so bad and it was our errors. When you can fix your errors and we started to, the game got tied up and I knew it was our's. We had the confidence then and leadership then." Unlike the first set, the Flashes never trailed in the second set. There wasn't much separation between the teams until kills from Natalie Slone and Schaffer helped Willard open a 14-10 lead. The margin was still four points at 19-15 later when Slone smacked a kill and Stephens served up an ace. From there, the teams exchanged points until a kill from Schaffer gave the Flashes a stranglehold on the match. "Once (Weiss) started to swing and we started to (realize) we were OK, everybody else started to relax and run with it," Bond said. "The best thing about our team is one hitter can be off and the next hitter picks them up. "We don't have to have the superstar be on or we're done. We have a team and it's great because if one person is off, the next person picks them up." In Set 3, Willard jumped ahead with the first three points and made it 6-2 on a Schaffer kill. Once again, the Crimson Flashes didn't trail. Otsego got within 10-9 on two hitting errors by Willard, but the Flashes didn't panic. Instead, Willard answered with the next six points. Once again, Weiss fueled the way with three kills in the run. The Flashes went up 22-13 on a kill from Camryn Wiers before the Knights scored seven straight points. Willard regrouped though as Schaffer lined a kill, Weiss and Wiers combined on a block and Wiers sent a thunderous kill down for the win. Leah McCabe led Otsego with 12 kills while Reese Genson and Kayla McCabe each added four kills. The Knights entered after a five-set marathon win over Liberty-Benton in a district semifinal Tuesday. "I knew absolutely nothing about that team until about 24 hours ago," Bond said. "I had scouted Liberty-Benton a lot and I was planning on Liberty-Benton winning. After we won on Tuesday, I was up very, very, very late getting lots of film. I had film. I just hadn't watched it. "By game time, I felt confident that we were ready to go." Weiss finished with 14 kills and 10 digs while Slone added 12 digs and 10 kills. "We put a lot of focus in during practice," Slone said. "It took a lot of effort. It was definitely a team win." Stephens added 17 assists and 17 digs, Wiers had 17 digs, 17 assists and seven kills and Alexis Rettig registered 12 digs. Schaffer blasted six kills for Willard, which won its third district title under Bond. "This group when they came in from Day 1 in the summer, it wasn't like 'oh my gosh, we were good last year.' They wanted to be just as good as last year," Bond said. "On paper when you look at it, we lost an all-Ohio setter. We lost an all-Ohio hitter. We lost our libero. "This group worked and worked and worked."