Southern Ohio Sports Authority is presented by OhioHealth.
WAVERLY — There were no balloons, streamers or gifts. But Kailee Johnson didn’t seem to mind. She still threw her coming out party on Saturday.
As Zane Trace and Huntington went deeper into a grueling Division V district championship match, Johnson seemed to only get stronger.
By the fifth set, the Pioneers’ junior middle hitter had completely taken over the contest, willing her team to a thrilling victory — a 19-25, 25-21, 25-21, 21-25, 15-8 final — and helping to secure the program’s first district crown since 2012.
“I’m so proud of her,” Zane Trace coach Ashton Ward said of Johnson. “She’s such a good kid, she works hard and she deserved what she did tonight. She’s living up to her expectations.”
Earlier this season, Huntington had handed Zane Trace (14-11) two losses. On Aug. 27, the Huntsmen won a four-set match before beating the Pioneers in five sets on Sept. 19.
But when it mattered the most, ZT walked away with a win and the hardware to go alongside it. It’s a surefire testament of how far Ward’s group has come in the past two months.
“I think it was just a now or never thing for us tonight,” Ward said. “The girls wanted this. We’ve watched film, we’ve scouted, I’ve pretended to be their setter in practice … We’ve just practiced really hard and focused on our goal. We had a game plan and a goal coming in and the girls just bought into it. They executed it.”
Huntington (21-4) seized an early 8-5 lead in the first set behind Kaci Carroll and Brailee Hauswirth. Carroll was just getting warmed up, though. The SVC Player of the Year powered down two kills midway through to push the advantage to 18-14.
Later, after another kill from Carroll and an ace from fellow senior Leah McCloskey, the Huntsmen had a 22-16 lead and never looked back, winning 25-19 to go ahead 1-0.
The Pioneers threw a counter-punch in the second and Addison Platt, Laynie Scott and Johnson all played a part in delivering it.
ZT took an early 3-2 lead and never trailed again, building advantages of 6-3, 12-6 and 20-13, before closing out a 25-21 get-back win, tying the match at 1-1.
“Usually, Addison and Laynie are our go-to hitters and we change the plan,” Ward said. “[Platt and Scott] went with it. They lifted everybody up. This team isn’t selfish at all and they’ve become a really good team. It’s taken them awhile, but they’re starting to really come together.”
In the third, ZT carried over the momentum gained.
CREDIT: Derrick Webb/SOSA
Karlee Snavely logged an ace to put the Pioneers in front at 4-3 before Johnson later made it a 13-9 advantage with back-to-back kills.
A kill from Carroll and back-to-back aces from the senior helped spearhead a 7-2 run to put Huntington ahead by a 16-15 tally. After Allie Baker followed suit with a kill of her own, the Huntsmen owned a 20-18 lead and looked to take a 2-1 match lead.
The Pioneers had other plans, though.
Johnson kept swinging and eventually powered a 3-0 burst to erase the deficit and give her team a 21-20 edge. And that, put simply, was all the energy ZT needed to pull out a come-from-behind victory. An ace via Reise Grant and a block from Snavely polished off a 25-21 final.
With their season hanging by a thread, Huntington refused to go away quietly.
With the game tied at 7-7 in the fourth, the Huntsmen ripped off seven straight points to take a 14-7 lead. That seven-point advantage stayed intact at 21-14 and, although ZT pieced together a late 6-1 run of its own, Huntington held on to win a 25-21 final and force a fifth.
In the race to 15, it was all Pioneers and all Kailee Johnson.
A hitting error gave Huntington a 1-0 lead before Snavely, Platt and Johnson teamed up to push the lead to 5-1 and force a Huntsmen timeout. Out of the break, Johnson tallied back-to-back kills for a 7-1 advantage and later made it 9-3, repeating the sequence.
It provided more than enough momentum for ZT to ride to a 15-8 victory and clinch a regional berth.
“I’m so proud of this group,” Ward said. “We’ve gone through a lot of adversity this season and we’ve got some young players in some really important positions. They’re coming into form and I’m glad they’re doing it at tournament time. You can’t beat that.”
While Huntington’s season comes to an end, Zane Trace advances to a Division V regional semifinal where it’ll meet with Adena for a third time this season.
The Warriors, like the Huntsmen, have beaten the Pioneers twice this season — by way of sweep on Sept. 3 and in four sets on Sept. 26.
First serve is scheduled for 8 p.m. on Thursday at Logan High School.
“We just need to stay locked in and have a game plan,” Ward said. “It says a lot about the SVC and that it’s a tough conference to play in. So we’ll just have to keep our game plan and go in and focus on the ‘next play.’ That’s been our motto.”
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