Monroeville headed to state after regional sweep

State tournaments are designed to make things tougher as teams advance. That was not the case for Monroeville, which met little resistance at the regional level. The No. 5-ranked Eagles swept Elyria Open Door Christian 25-9, 25-9, 25-18 in a Division VII regional volleyball championship Saturday afternoon at Berkshire High School in Burton. The Eagles dominated from the opening moments and won their 22nd straight match to improve to 24-2. "One of the best matches we've played this year," Monroeville coach Kendra Snook said. "We were very good from the service line and got them out of system and were able to terminate. Offensively we couldn't have had more than five hitting errors. "Our defense defended them to a T. We were able to dig pretty much anything they hit at us. It was a complete team effort and we were very efficient." Monroeville's prize is its sixth trip to state in the last 11 years. The Eagles will play No. 4 Russia (21-6) in a state semifinal at 6 p.m. Thursday at Vandalia Butler High School just north of Dayton. Russia defeated defending state champion Fort Loramie in five sets for a second time this season in its regional final. After two 3-2 wins at the district level, the Eagles won all six sets at the regional and outscored their two opponents 150-84. In each of the three sets against Open Door, the Eagles were challenged early, leading the first set 8-6, the second 7-6 and battling to a 12-12 tie in the third. But the Eagles made few errors throughout the match and wore down Elyria-based Open Door (22-5) at the net and from the service line, where they recorded 11 aces. In the first set, Addison Lyons had three aces while serving up a 9-0 run to give Monroeville a 17-6 lead. A 6-0 run with Madyson Miller serving bumped the lead to 23-7 and Alexa Adams got the final point in the first set. Haylee Moorman had three kills in the 14-1 run that built momentum for the Eagles. The second set was more of the same. Three straight Ady Adams aces gave the Eagles a commanding 20-7 lead. Madi Reiber came up with a block and tipped home a kill to finish the set. Reiber had eight kills in the match to reach 999 for her career. Reiber finished with eight kills. Alexa Adams led the way with 11 kills, 14 digs and three aces. Lyons had 13 assists and three aces. Kaci Poths added 12 assists and Addison Homan had a team-high 19 digs. Open Door, playing in its first regional final, put up a fight in the third set and pulled to within 18-17 on a kill from Paige Pachinger — the Patriots' top player who was held in check for most of the match — and an ace by Hannah Szunyogh. That prompted Snook's only timeout of the match. "I told them they needed to clean it up," she said. "We were getting burned from the tips and that was the only thing that prevented us from going on runs." Gabby Loose and Reiber responded with kills before a block by Riley Platte and a quick set by Kaci Poths gave the Eagles a 22-17 edge. A couple Open Door errors and one more Reiber kill ended the match in just under one hour. The dominant performance raised Monroeville's record in regional play since 2018 to 10-2. Snook felt that her team was relaxed and drew on its experience of playing in big matches. "The coaching staff may not be relaxed, but (the players) were relaxed and ready to go," she said. "They've known the expectations all year and wanted to be on a team that got back down to state." Monroeville last reached the state semifinals in 2022 when it fell to New Bremen in the state championship. The Eagles fell in their semifinal matches in their previous four trips prior to beating Newark Catholic in the 2022 semis.