Niners sweep Panthers for 3A regional title
By Ryan Haskell Post-Tribune correspondent October 25, 2011 11:18PM
Andrean's Shelby Stickler (second from right) celebrates with teammates after defeating Griffith to win the Class 3A volleyball regional held at Griffith High School on Tuesday October 25th, 2011. | Charles Mitchell~For Sun-Times Media
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Updated: January 23, 2012 4:16AM
GRIFFITH — Andrean has quite a flair for the dramatic.
But it worked out exactly how the 59ers had hoped in the end.
After missing four game-points in Game 3 and getting just about the whole gym on its feet, Andrean scored three consecutive points at the end to win, 30-28, and wrap up the school’s first regional championship since 1998.
Griffith (21-10) gave the 59ers (31-5) everything it had on Tuesday night in the Class 3A Griffith Regional despite losing 3-0 and the scrappy little team almost pulled off quite an upset.
The Panthers lost the first game, 25-23, and second game, 25-18.
“No team is just going to roll over and say here is your regional title; they put up a good fight. They were scrappy and they fought hard,” said Andrean outside hitter Taylor Mullen, who finished with 15 kills and nine digs. “It’s still unbelievable but it’s starting to kick in.”
Griffith had lost its two prior matches in Northwest Crossroads Conference play and never even had a lead in any of the previous six games. That changed Tuesday night as Kelsey Bonewits and Lisette Roldan set the tone for the Panthers offense with several impressive kills to start the match.
The Panthers led 10-5 in Game 1.
“After beating Gavit (in the sectional championship on Saturday), they were just in the right frame of mind,” Griffith coach Cathy Dilbeck said. “And last night at practice their focus was Andrean and stopping those outside hitters. We don’t have those big blockers but we did everything right and earned a lot more points than the last two times we played them.”
But “big time” Shelby Stickler stepped up when the important points needed to be scored. Stickler, who led the 59ers with 19 kills and 13 digs, smacked back-to-back kills to end Game 1, then put down the winner in Game 2 on a tip kill.
Game 3 was no different as she had the game-tying kill in Game 3 knotting the score at 28. Two Griffith errors closed the chapter on the match and Andrean claimed the regional title.
First-year coach Julie Wiejak said Stickler has been doing it all year long.
“I remember going into our first Crown Point scrimmage and I remember telling her sister (assistant coach) Meagan (Stickler) ‘Your sister is a gamer.’ In practice, she really wasn’t intense but when I saw her in that first game I like ‘Wow.’” Wiejak said. “She was this emotional, jumping, screaming player and I was just like this is awesome. I’ve never seen this side of her. So I knew she was going to be the spark plug when push came to shove.”
Andrean setter Ana Nicksic had another strong showing registering 39 assists and three kills in the win.
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