By Rick Cassano
VANDALIA – A season of historic success has come to an end for Harrison High School’s girls volleyball team.
The Wildcats fell two wins short of the Division II state tournament and finished with a 22-3 record after dropping a 25-19, 25-19, 25-15 decision to Kings on Thursday night in a regional semifinal at Butler’s Student Activity Center.
HHS coach Philip Deak said it was a memorable season simply because of the players.
“They’re a special group of girls,” Deak said. “Anytime anything happens for the team, it’s because they have good attitudes, they work hard and they like being around each other.
“Team chemistry is always a big part of success. I’ve never coached a team that doesn’t like to be around each other and then wins a lot. Practice is always fun. They like to compete and joke around and talk trash to each other, so being in the gym never seemed like it was work. It seemed like it was an opportunity to be together. That was their fun.”
Harrison advanced to regionals for the first time since losing to Mason in a Division I semifinal in 2009 and will return most of its offensive firepower next year.
Kenna Farris, Lucy Longworth, Stella Whitis and Maddie Ward are the Wildcats’ four seniors.
“We’re all pretty upset with the outcome, but we’re very happy with how our season went because the couple years prior were not the best,” said Farris, a setter who established a single-season school record in assists this year with 875. “We made a lot of really good friendships and a lot of good memories that we’re going to look back on and miss. We’re all happy that we got to experience it together.”
“We can be sad for ourselves that we lost, but we’re super proud of what we’ve accomplished,” added teammate Regan Oaks, a junior outside hitter. “In the past we’ve had the opportunity to win, but we weren’t really able to execute. We knew we were going to be able to execute this year. Coming in with that mind-set helped us have a really great season.”
Kings (21-3), the Eastern Cincinnati Conference champion, has reeled off 18 consecutive victories since losing to Mount Notre Dame on Aug. 29.
The Knights and Wildcats are teams with a lot of young talent, so they could be headed for multiple postseason matchups in the coming years.
“They’re really good,” Deak said. “We just couldn’t get any momentum. We couldn’t keep our serve. They serve-received really well at a high rate, and we didn’t serve tough enough and they served tough.
“We didn’t handle the serve-receive as well as we should’ve. When we got the ball and we passed it well enough, we scored, so I was comfortable with that. We just couldn’t do it consistently enough, and they sided us out a lot.
“I don’t know that they’re that much better than us. I would like to think not, but obviously today they were.”
Kings used a 4-2 alignment with two setters, senior Anabelle Seni and freshman Dri Naranjo, and Harrison struggled in dealing with it.
“We’ve never really seen their setter situation where they would flip it and they were setting out of the outside and right side,” Farris said. “We practiced it in practice, but it was still very unpredictable. Adjusting to that midgame was kind of difficult. We also were getting a lot of block touches, but we didn’t really execute when we did get the touches.”
Veteran Knights coach Amanda Meadows said she’s willing to try different things every season. She said the dynamics of her team make the 4-2 a smart thing to do.
“Honestly, I’ve never run a 4-2 in my life on a varsity team, but I’m not a cookie-cutter coach,” Meadows said. “You’ve seen from a few years ago that we will option block and throw our setters to the left side if we need a bigger blocker over on our right side.
“People look at you like, ‘What are you doing?’ All I can say is I watch a lot of college volleyball and I copy what they do. Whatever it takes to use those strengths.”
Meadows called Seni “literally the best blocking setter I’ve ever coached in my life,” and she contributed three blocks against Harrison.
Freshman outside hitter Sammi Wehrman piled up 23 kills in the victory. The rest of the team combined for 22.
“Teams will run a 6-2, but they ran a 4-2,” Deak said. “One of their setters was always up front so they could be aggressive and do some different things. We practiced it yesterday, but it’s hard to duplicate it until you see it in a gym.”
The Wildcats have a formidable net crew with sophomore Aubrey Templin and Oaks on the outside, and sophomores Madison Meibers and Madison Waite on the inside. Harrison simply couldn’t find the rhythm that it’s had most of the season.
Templin totaled 10 kills and Oaks had seven for HHS. Longworth had 13 digs, while Farris chipped in 19 assists.
Oaks said Kings was strong, but the Wildcats didn’t have their best day “and there were times we could’ve gone into a little funk.”
Meadows was expecting a major challenge from Harrison. She liked the way her players responded.
“I love playing against good competition,” Meadows said. “We scouted them and knew their strengths and weaknesses. I thought we did a really good job of balancing things out. There were definitely times where we didn’t get our block closed and they shoved the ball down our throats. That’s going to happen when you play a good team.
“Overall, I think the team just reacted well to when we weren’t in the right spot. We did a really good job of filling in the hole when we needed to or just making adjustments. Later in the game we did a better job of even throwing a triple block in the middle once in a while when we had Anabelle in the front row.”
Senior libero Kennady Horsley had 17 digs and three aces Thursday. Meadows said her pass average is very high and “that’s the kind of anchor you need.”
The Knights will be making their second regional-final appearance at 2 p.m. on Saturday when they face Whitehouse Anthony Wayne at Butler. Kings was the D-I state champion in 2023.
Meadows said the Knights are able to succeed at a high level because they have a complete team.
“I think when you look at a lot of teams, you’ve got one or two kids that are really hyped, really into it, volleyball means the world to us,” Meadows said. “We’ve got a whole team, including our bench. That’s just their mentality. We’re not a one-man show.”
Harrison will move forward into next season with a strong foundation, though Deak said replacing captains Farris and Longworth won’t be easy.
Deak said the Wildcats will need to work hard in the offseason and not taking anything for granted.
“The future is obviously bright with what we’ve got coming back, but sometimes it’s hard to duplicate these seasons,” Deak said. “We’ve added a couple tougher teams for next season already on our schedule because we need to get tested more to be ready for this stuff.”
Farris said she was excited to get to play all season after missing several weeks of her junior campaign because of an illness.
“I’m proud of myself for pushing through,” Farris said. “I also got the support of my teammates to pick me up along the way.”
Farris said she’s deciding whether to attend Ohio University or Miami and might play club volleyball in college.