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WELLSTON — For roughly 10 minutes of real time, it appeared like Southeastern was completely dead in the water and its season was slowly coming to an end.
The Panthers had just suffered a 14-point third set loss, they had no energy at all, the offense wasn’t clicking and the defense wasn’t moving its feet.
However, volleyball is a funny game.
“Volleyball is the only sport where you can reset the score and start completely over, no matter how many sets you’re down,” Southeastern coach Gavin Patterson said. “It simply came down to us matching Federal Hocking’s energy. It was now or never, so we had to put everything in the back of our minds and show who we are.”
With a renewed feeling, the inner want to play for their lone senior and a trip to a district final on the line, the Panthers (16-8) managed to rally for the fourth set win.
CREDIT: Derrick Webb/SOSA
Ultimately, that momentum never left their bench as they completed a 25-23, 19-25, 11-25, 25-20, 15-8 comeback victory to stun Federal Hocking in a Division V district semifinal on Tuesday.
“Our team is all back next year, except for Jozy Lougheed and that was our motivation in the final two sets,” Patterson said. “It’s a hard message to relay to anyone who has more time left in their high school career, but this is it for Jozy once the season is over. The girls really wanted it for her, and she completely took over the fifth set in a way that only she could do. It was senior leadership at its finest.”
Much of the turnaround wasn’t not wanting the season to end, but also making a lineup adjustment and inserting Macy Strausbaugh into the mix.
With Lougheed at the setter position in the first three sets, it somewhat limited the chances the Panthers’ offense had.
But Strausbaugh coming off the bench into the setter role was the spark the Panthers needed. In the final two sets, the sophomore managed 12 assists, six digs, a pair of kills and two aces.
“Macy was hitting phenomenal in practice all week, even as a setter, so I knew that I could plug her in anywhere and she’d do a great job,” Patterson said. “Our outside was struggling a little bit, so I figured that we might as well let her play all the way around and run a 6-2 [rotation]. We’ve worked on a 6-2 since the beginning of the year, since we knew our other setter was going to miss the second half of the year. We shifted back, moved Jozy to hitter since we were lacking on the offensive side and it worked out for us.”
Southeastern controlled early leads of 6-3 and 10-5 after a Kyra Francis ace, and 17-10 following FH errors alongside a kill from Lougheed. However, the errors began to pile up for the Panthers and what was once a seven-point lead was suddenly a 19-18 Lancer lead off a 9-1 run.
After ties at 19, 20, 22 and 23, the Panther managed the next two points off kills from Reese Ruckel and Ava Carrico to take a first set victory.
It was a completely different story in the next two sets.
Federal Hocking (15-9) jumped ahead to a 6-0 lead in the second set behind kills from Juniper Ballew and an ace from Markala Goeglein. That lead continued to balloon, reaching 10-2 and later 20-11. The Panthers attempted a comeback, narrowing the gap to 21-18, but Megan Reichart put the game away for the Lancers to tie the match.
With momentum sitting comfortably on their bench, the Lancers hit the overdrive button.
Reichart had two blocks and Karlee Grimm served two aces to go ahead 9-4. The lead only continued to grow as the Panthers didn’t have the energy to keep up, trailing by double digits before finding themselves down 2-1 entering the fourth.
“Federal Hocking made really good adjustments with our defense. They found our weak spots in the deep corners and started swinging away,” Patterson said. “We have a very young defense and an inexperienced team that has learned and improved all season, but that wasn’t our best moment. I think there were definitely some nerves when they saw Federal Hocking fight back and we weren’t matching their energy.”
Patterson rolled the dice, inserted Strausbaugh into the lineup and the Panthers were off and running. Behind two kills from Carrico, they jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead. The Lancers fought back to later tie the game at 10-10 and took a 13-12 lead. But SE went right back in front at 14-13 after an ace from Strausbaugh.
From that point on, Lougheed, Ruckel, Carrico and Kylee Dunn all registered kills as the Panthers corrected their mistakes to win the fourth set.
“They all picked a great time to step up, and making that little lineup tweak was just what we needed,” Patterson said. “Things weren’t going our direction, but the girls showed a lot of growth and maturity to rebound in the type of fashion they did to force a fifth set.”
With the race to 15 underway, the Panthers turned to Lougheed and the senior put the team on her back. She had a pair of kills, followed by three straight aces to go up 8-3.
That alone was too much for Federal Hocking to handle, and the Panthers continued to add with a kill from Carrico, alongside a kill and block from Ruckel. Rightfully so, a Lougheed kill completed the five-set thriller.
Lougheed finished the game with 25 assists, 12 digs, 11 kills and four aces. Carrico and Ruckel added 10 kills each, and Dunn added eight kills. Gracie Brown had 28 digs and Calley Stauffer followed with 18 digs.
Southeastern will return to action at 11 a.m. on Saturday in a Division VI district final at Wellston High School. The Panthers will meet with South Webster, who defeated Waterford in straight sets to advance.
“South Webster is really good at passing and serving. We’re a pretty good serving team as well, so keeping the ball away from Addi Claxon as much as possible will help our chances,” Patterson said. “We’ll work on our serve receive and our net play as well. They have really good hitters, maybe not like they did over the last five or so years, but if we can pass the ball and get it to our hitters, we’ll put up a really good fight.”
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