OLMSTED FALLS — The girls showed off the latest in high fashion Monday afternoon — gold T-shirts with blue lettering that said “2008 state champions.”
And the new threads looked good on every one of them.
Olmsted Falls High School celebrated its volleyball team’s unbeaten season and Division I state championship — the first in school history — with a gathering for the students in the high school gymnasium.
The Bulldogs, ranked second in Ohio for most of the year, knocked off No. 1-ranked Ursuline Academy on Saturday, completing a dream season that ended with a 29-0 record.
A smattering of hands rose when Olmsted Falls principal Robert Hill asked how many students in the gym had ever played on an undefeated team. The celebration ended when captains Lauren Whyte and Christine Peffer presented Hill, in his first year as principal, the state championship trophy.
Winning the state championship was one of the team’s stated goals when the year began. But did the players really believe then that they would be the center of attention at an event like Monday’s?
“Would you all hate me if I said no?” Brittany Snider asked her senior teammates when the question was posed, forcing the others to admit that a state championship is a pretty lofty goal to aim for in August.
“The more we played together and the more the team developed, the more of a reality it started to look like,” said Peffer, who wasn’t on the floor for her team’s final two points of the match after suffering torn ligaments in her right knee.
The Bulldogs almost saw their chances fly away in the Norwalk regional semifinal, as they suffered their closest call of the season.
Olmsted Falls lost the first two games against Toledo St. Ursula Academy before rallying to win. It was one of only two five-game matches the Bulldogs all season and the only time they lost a Game 1.
“Not so much,” Brooke Purvis said when asked if the players thought they were goners. “We just needed to get out of the funk we were in.”
“As much as none of us want to admit it, we were looking ahead to Magnificat,” Whyte said. “We were fooled because of (St. Ursula’s) youth.”
“It was kind of frustrating because I thought, ‘Oh, man, we have to go to five (games),’” Peffer added.
The other match that will be talked about for quite some time was the state championship, particularly the Game 1 marathon that Falls finally won, 39-37. It was the second time in state final four history a match went that long.
“I looked at the television replay of that game, when we were ahead 24-21, and I thought, ‘Why didn’t we just win?’” Snider said.
“I was getting angry,” Whyte admitted, noting that Falls was at game point 12 times until finally getting the victory.
There was no anger in the gym Monday afternoon, as the coaches said they saw nothing but confidence among the players.
“We had an omen of sorts,” assistant coach Brigid Radigan said. “After dinner Friday, I saw a dog in a car. I said to Coach (Dawn) Moses, ‘What a cute dog.’ It turned out to be a bulldog wearing a blue ribbon in a gold car. That told me this was our destiny and we’d win the state.”
Olmsted Falls is ranked No. 5 nationally by MaxPreps, an Internet high school sports site. Ursuline was No. 2 in the nation before the Bulldogs gave the Lions their only loss of the season.
A community-wide celebration of the state championship will be held Sunday at 5 p.m. in the high school auditorium.
Contact Steve Byrne at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.

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