By Jeremy McDonald

jeremycmdonald73@gmail.com

MEDFORD, Ore.–  The Scio Volleyball team battled, they showed grit and determination in their 3A Playoff defeat to St. Mary’s of Medford Saturday afternoon in South Medford.

They went toe-to-toe with the Crusaders, who would go on to take the match 25-23, 25-21, 25-13, in the first set as both teams hung tough with one another.  St. Mary’s would go to their big Middle Hitter of Kelsey Dunn in the second set to build themselves a 21-10 lead before the Loggers timed out her hits and began to chip away at the 11-point deficit.

It was their quick and fast offense that had caught Scio in an unfamiliar situation that they had to adjust to on the fly, something that has Head Coach Lori Ramsay looking ahead to next season in trying to better prepare her squad for if they ever see that again in the future. To familiar themselves with the style of play that St. Mary’s runs.

“I think what I would like to do is to strengthen our preseason and our non-league games with us having to travel more to play teams that do things like this.  In our league, people don’t run what St. Mary’s does, so I think that the kids were a little bit surprised by it even though it was amazing Volleyball.  St. Mary’s is a super good program, so I hope they surprise people at State honestly,” Ramsay said.

But down the stretch in the second set, they fought and clawed their way back into the set.  Getting the match back to 22-18 and 23-19 after being down double-digits and looking to complete the comeback and/or carry the momentum over to the third set in hopes for a reverse sweep of the Crusaders.

“We just have that heart and we just knew we had to push harder than we did before and we wanted to move on.  I think we left it all on the court, even though we lost, I think we played really well and had a really good season,” Kadence Soto said. 

Scio loses a significant senior in Carrie Jones from this year’s team, but Soto points to how much she taught them to keep on pushing and keep being positive with the bulk of the Loggers 16-7 team returning next Fall.  And being close the last two years, that experience of being at this point will only help them going into the next season.

“It’s just going to be a little bit harder and we have to adapt to the situation we’re in,” Soto said of the playoff atmosphere.  “We might not know the team that we have to play, but we can’t dwell on that part, we just have to play our game and give it our all.”

“I believe that setting up this year for next year is huge,” adds Ramsay.  “This is just a carry over to next year where a lot of people are graduating their seniors.  Super excited”

Photos By Jeremy McDonald