ELYRIA — If Tuesday night is the start of a trend, you can say Carol Russo has brought consistency to the Elyria Catholic volleyball program.

Elyria Catholic defeated North Coast Conference rival Holy Name in three games, all by the score of 25-18, in Russo’s first home game as the Panthers’ coach.

One thing is for certain. Russo has brought stability to a program that lost its head coach 12 days before the start of the season. The Panthers are now 2-0 and have yet to look like a club that has had only five days of practice under its new regime.

Naturally, Russo praised her players for hunkering down in the face of adversity.

“I can’t say enough about them,” Russo said of her players, who only learned the longtime Elyria High School coach would take over their program last Monday.

“They have been delightful,” Russo said. “They were in a rotten situation and they’re determined to make the best of it. We’re now over the hump, moving forward and just playing volleyball. Only five days of practice and they’re playing very well.”

“After three practices we pulled together completely,” said Anna McNeeley, one of the Panthers’ senior captains. “We played last night (at Trinity on Tuesday) and did not get back until late. After no practice we fixed a few things in this match and did pretty well.”

“We’re working on defense,” Russo said. “Defense will win it for us. You don’t have to psych up anyone to play offense. They all want to hit. The key over the season will be defense.”

Sara Kaminski, a junior outside hitter, led EC both offensively and defensively. She had seven of her 14 kills in the third game and was high with 11 digs. Ali Dumski added eight digs.

The Panthers began the match looking like a team that might have needed more time to adjust to its new situation. Holy Name jumped to a 5-0 lead before EC started to assert itself. The Panthers tied the score at 7 before falling behind 10-7.

“We made some adjustments in our blocking,” Russo said. “Our blockers were up too high. We corrected a few things, started getting more tips and put ourselves in a much better position.”

The Panthers scored six in a row to go ahead 13-10 and keep the lead for good. EC was ahead 21-18 and ran off the last four points on two kills by McNeeley and one each by Rehgan Avon and Kit O’Shaughnessy. McNeeley had seven of her 13 kills in the opener.

Holy Name led only once in Game 2 at 2-1. EC ran off five unanswered points and never lost the lead. A 6-1 run by the Panthers lifted them to a 16-10 lead. The biggest margin of the second game came at 20-12.
The Green Wave fought back and trailed only 22-18. Two kills by Kaminski sandwiched a Holy Name hitting error to finish the game.

EC came out roaring in Game 3, scoring the first eight points and never getting in serious trouble. But Holy Name again fought back. After trailing 15-5 and 20-9, the Green Wave trimmed the Panthers’ lead to 22-16. The teams traded points before a kill by McNeeley ended the night’s activity.

Marissa Garcia added seven kills and O’Shaughnessy six. O’Shaughnessy also was high with 24 assists. Rachel Pronesti added 11 assists.

Lauren Herrmann and Leah Switalski led Holy Name with seven kills each. Switalski added four block kills.

Contact Steve Byrne at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.

---

Print this story
Report an inappropriate comment

---

In order to comment, you must agree to our user agreement and discussion guidelines.

Need help? Email Us.

---