Near flawless Henry-Senachwine tops Seneca for T-CC volleyball tournament title

OTTAWA — Henry-Senachwine senior setter Lauren Harbison said when the Mallards are on their game, they are a tough team to beat.

That was certainly the case in Thursday’s championship match of the Tri-County Conference Tournament against Seneca.

Henry-Senachwine, the tournament’s second seed, played nearly mistake-free throughout a 25-17, 25-23 victory over the top-seeded Fighting Irish at Bader Gymnasium.

It’s the program’s first title at the event since 1988.

“We were in (the title match) last year and lost, so to come back this year, especially it being my senior year, and win it is awesome,” said Harbison, who recorded 13 assists, three kills, two aces, a block and six service points. “We have a lot of goals as a team for this season, goals we’ve set that we expect to achieve, and this was one of them. We felt if we played to the best of our abilities we would win tonight. I think we just clicked from start to finish.

“When we click, I feel we are tough to beat.”

The Mallards (25-7) also received solid performances from Harper Schrock (six kills, one block), Kaitlyn Anderson (four kills, two blocks, nine digs, six points) and Brynna Anderson (four kills, six points).

“We came into this match after playing Seneca earlier in the year (a straight-set loss on Aug. 29) and what we’ve seen from them lately was a lot of tipping, but they really came out swinging,” H-S coach Rita Self said. “We normally don’t play a good tip game, so I really felt with each side just swinging away would be to our advantage. If teams tip a lot against us, we feel we have to counter that with tips and more often than not it doesn’t work well for us.

“I want us to always stick to what I feel we do well, serve and hit aggressively and be scrappy on defense. I feel like if we do those three things consistently, we have a good chance of being on the winning side at the end. That was the case tonight.”

[ Photos: Henry-Senachwine vs. Seneca volleyball in the Tri-County Conference Championship ]

Seneca (25-3), which dropped only seven sets on the season and entered the match winners of 20 straight, were led by seven kills by Audry McNabb, three kills each from Brooklyn Sheedy and Tessa Krull (three blocks) and 17 assists from Lainie Olson.

The opening set was tied at 11 after a block and a kill off an overpass by Krull. H-S, behind an ace by Harbison, a kill by Brooklyn Thompson and a block by Kaitlyn Anderson, eventually held a 20-15 lead. From there, a sideout and four-point service run by Kaitlyn Anderson, which included an ace, closed out the set.

“We could just never put a solid run together in either set,” Seneca coach Noah Champene said. “It seemed like anytime we’d scored two or three points in a row it would be followed by a missed serve, or passing a free ball out of bounds or not covering up on our hitters. We just had way too many little mistakes here and there, but all of those eventually add up. I was a little disappointed with how we played in the first set, but I thought we bounced back and played a really solid second set.”

The second set saw the teams tied at 13 after a winning swing by McNabb. The Mallards then used two kills each by Schrock and Kaitlyn Anderson, plus a block and ace by Harbison to hold a 21-18 advantage.

The Irish knotted the score at 21 after a kill by Krull and ace by Olson, but the Mallards countered with a kill and block by Schrock. A kill by McNabb was followed by a Seneca net violation and a kill by Franki Meyers to make it 24-23 Mallards. Schrock then closed out the set and match with a kill down the line.

“Credit Henry-Senachwine, they were tough at the net, tough in the back row and really executed everything they did almost flawlessly,” Champene said. “They are a very good team, and they deserved to win this match tonight.”