By Chris Slone
PORTSMOUTH — The Notre Dame Titans beat the Paint Valley Bearcats in straight sets to claim the sectional championship Thursday at Notre Dame High School.
Notre Dame (19-4) continues to keep its preseason goals alive with Thursday’s victory.
“At the beginning of the season, our goals was to win the league and to get to regionals,” Titans head coach Kelsey Glockner said. “So tonight was a big game because it obviously starts the journey to regionals. Paint Valley is a great program and comes from a great conference in the SVC, so we knew not to take them lightly. The girls worked hard all week. We came in here tonight with a lot of emotion and was ready to get the tournament started.”
The Titans controlled the match throughout as the eighth-seeded Bearcats spent the evening playing catchup.
“We always start every game with goals from the previous game and what we worked on in practice, and today we had some slumps in serve-receive, so that’s something we’ll get back in the gym and work on but luckily our net play and offense was there tonight,” Glockner said.
With Notre Dame advancing in postseason play, Glockner is already formulating a game plan for the Titans as district play is just around the corner.
“What we will really focus on now and what we focus a lot of our practices on is discipline,” Glockner said. “Also, knowing the other team, knowing the players that they have and knowing what we have to do to beat them. Whether it’s tipping, hitting, whatever it may be, that’s what we’ll work on all week in practice.”
The top-seeded Titans travel to Jackson to continue their Division IV postseason run with a District Semifinal match on Oct. 28 against the winner of Southern-Eastern Pike.
Box Score
Notre Dame def. Paint Valley 25-13, 25-13, 25-9
Reach Chris Slone at 740-353-3101, ext 1930, or on Twitter @crslone.
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