Girls volleyball: Marquette holds off Seneca for Tri-County Tournament title

SENECA – When two evenly-matched quality volleyball teams collide, both are likely to flex their muscles in whatever aspects of the game make them just that.

Such was the case for No. 1-seeded Marquette and No. 3 Seneca in Thursday night’s championship game of the Tri-County Conference Tournament.

That means the little things – a mistake here, an error there – often decide the issue, again much like Thursday night in Seneca.

With the first set tied at 24-apiece, the last of six Irish net violations gave Marquette the lead and the ball, which led to Mary Lechtenberg’s big block for set point. In the second game, the Crusaders’ lead was 23-22 when back-to-back Seneca hitting errors closed out the top seed’s intense, 26-24, 25-22 victory over the tournament hosts.

Led by all-tournament selections Lindsey Kaufmann and Kaylee Killelea, the Crusaders (23-6) have claimed TCC titles in both the regular season (clinched with last Thursday’s win over Putnam County) and the conference tourney in the same season for the first time since 2019 and the second time since “a really long time before that,” joked Marquette coach Mindy McConnaughhay.

“There were some missed serves on both sides, but they’re being really aggressive, and you can’t fault them for that. It’s risk versus reward, and if it pays off a few times, it’s worth it,” McConnaughhay said. “But I feel the difference was our defense was just a little bit smoother at the end. Our defense kicked in once the scores got tight, and there were times we read their attack pretty well. We have a great block, we really, really do, and though [Seneca] sniped us a couple of times, when our defense is strong, the rest of our game just responds to it.

“Mary had a great night for us, not always the big stuff block, but getting a hand on it to slow the ball down. … Seneca is a great team, and this was a really fun rivalry environment tonight.”

The Irish, who had Neely Hougas, Sophie Cato and Faith Baker chosen all-tourney, started out strong, a five-point run by Taylor Mino giving them a 7-4 lead. Marquette slowly picked away to leads of 16-14 and 20-18 before the seesaw started, with a tip by Killelea and a kill by Teegan Johnson tying it at 24.

Johnson appeared to have another kill, but Seneca was whistled for a net violation, and Lechtenberg blocked a spike by Baker to finish off the set.

The second set went back and forth throughout, Marquette getting the biggest lead at four, 19-15, on three points by Eva McCallum. Consecutive kills by Cato and an ace by Hougas got the Irish within 21-20 before one of six kills by Killelea and another by Avery Durdan offset two of the seven kills by Cato, making it 23-22 Cru.

But there, a Seneca spike out of bounds and a tipping error provided the winning points for MA.

“We served well and hit well as the aggressor in that first set, but they were also the aggressor. It seemed whoever was serving put the other team’s serve-receive on their heels a bit,” Seneca coach Noah Champene said. “It came down to a couple of points here and there, the way it does when two quality teams meet. At the end of the day, they just outlasted us a little bit, made a few more plays than we did, but it’s two solid teams. I told the girls it’s no shame losing to a good team like that.

“One of the best things about this tonight, I told the girls, was to get to play in a high-leverage situation before the postseason, to have that experience in a championship sort of environment. Obviously it didn’t go the way we want, but we’ll learn from it and hopefully correct it.”