After defeating Ball State on April 26, the Ohio State men’s volleyball team advanced to the NCAA Final Four. The Buckeyes flew to Irvine, Calif., for the championship.
But a second meeting with Big Ten rival Penn State eliminated them from contention. The Buckeyes were outmatched, as Penn State won 30-21, 26-30, 30-22 and 30-17.
“Anytime you’re out on a trip like that, it’s special,” said Conor Martin (Avon Lake/St. Edward). “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. Being out there with the guys was just great. It was ‘Cloud Nine’ for five straight days. We played a tough match, but despite the fact that we lost, we still had a great time together.
“They’re a tough team,” he added of the eventual National Champions. “We play them a couple times each year. After that game two, we felt like we were right there with them. We were all ready to get back in game three and just try to do some of the same things that we saw in game two, but they just stepped on the throttle. They turned it on more than we’ve seen all season. They were on a mission and there was nothing we could really do about it, except go all out.”
Ohio State finished 20-8 overall and 11-1 in the Big Ten. Conor, a senior libero, led the Buckeye defense with 224 digs in 97 games. His 2.31 digs per game led the team.
“It was easily the best four years of my life,” said Conor. “You’re just surrounded by the greatest people you could find in this country. Being here at Ohio State with the facilities and the opportunities is just unbelievable.
“Just from the get-go back in October, we were working hard and had one goal,” he added. “That was to get back to the NCAAs. From the top down, we had some good senior leadership plus a lot of hard-working guys. We got after it real hard in the fall with conditioning. Then, when we hit the season, we were on a mission to play our best every single match and get back to where we want to be.”
Conor was joined by younger brother Sean, a freshman libero. Sean played in 37 games and had seven digs and an ace.
“This year, we had team chemistry that was just so strong,” Sean said. “There was such a sense of teamwork out on the court. We understood that we didn’t have the money, automatic kill, on the outside. It was everybody. We had strong middles and our middles got hurt. With our depth on the bench, everybody had a hand in it.
“We definitely thought we had a lockdown on those guys,” Sean said of Penn State in the Final Four. “We lost to them twice during the regular season, but all throughout our locker room, there wasn’t anybody in there who believed we couldn’t walk away with a national championship. Everybody had high hopes, but unfortunately, Penn State was a good team and still was that night.”
Playing in a Final Four is something Ohio State teams have grown accustomed to.
“It was special,” Conor said. “We played a couple years together in high school, but this one meant the most. This was my last year playing volleyball ever. We both wanted this one more than any other year. It was very memorable.”
“Head and shoulders, that’s the best experience I’ve ever had,” Sean said. “It was always just a goal of mine to have my sophomore and his senior year at St. Ed’s not be the last time we would play together. It was so rewarding that I got that chance to come to Ohio State and get a couple more years.”
Sean will be in uniform for the Buckeyes next year, while Conor has started work at Sherwin-Williams in the
real-estate accounting department before making a possible return to the court.

News and Notes

Vermilion graduate Mike Wilsey earned second-team All-American Mideast Conference baseball honors. The Notre Dame College senior third baseman batted .355 as the Falcons finished 22-24 and 11-15 in the conference.
Wilsey had 11 doubles, four home runs and a team-leading 34 runs batted in.
Wilsey’s teammate Dustin Taulbee (Elyria) earned honorable mention all-conference honors. Taulbee led the Falcons in doubles (16) and was third in batting with a .350 average.
• Jack Sito (Elyria) transferred from St. Leo University to Notre Dame and served double duty for the Falcons. In addition to hitting .336 with a team-leading five home runs, Sito also pitched in five games with a 2.97 earned run average. Sito was honorable mention All-AMC and was one of 11 conference players selected to the All-AMC Baseball Scholar-Athlete team.
• Urbana sophomore outfielder Andrew Harrell (Lorain/Steele) was also an AMC baseball scholar-athlete. He helped the Blue Knights (28-21, 16-10 AMC) by batting .319 with six doubles. He was also a 2008 Daktronics-NAIA baseball scholar-athlete.
• Senior Kristen Paulsen (Oberlin / Firelands) recently competed in her fourth straight NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships. She finished 11 th in the heptathlon at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.
Paulsen was 14 th in the heptathlon as a freshman, 12 th as a sophomore and 10 th as a junior. She scored 4,531 points in the NCAA meet as a junior and followed that with 4,374 points in her final college competition.
Matt Florjancic is a radio sports host for WOBL and WDLW.

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