Seneca defeats Coal City to capture Class 2A regional championship

COAL CITY – Many times when two very good teams meet up the outcome is going to come down to which side can – when they get it – hold onto the momentum longer.

In Thursday night’s championship match of the Class 2A Coal City Regional, Seneca used a quick start in a 25-19 opening set win against the host Coalers, then scored six of the final seven points in a 27-25 triumph to earn a postseason plaque for the first time since 2021.

Seneca (32-5), which surpassed the 2018 Fighting Irish squad for most wins in a season, now advances to play Prophetstown, a two-set regional title winner over Rock Falls at Sterling Newman, on Tuesday in a 7 p.m. semifinal at the Bureau Valley Sectional.

Coal City finished the season at 21-16.

“The first seven or eight points couldn’t have gone any better for us, we came out on absolute fire,” Seneca coach Noah Champene said of his teams 7-0 start that included three aces by Lainie Olson and three kills by Graysen Provance. “But credit to a well-coached Coal City team because they just kept coming at us all match long. I really thought both teams were outstanding defensively. It wasn’t easy to get a ball to the floor, even with both teams really hitting the ball hard. It was a great battle.”

Seneca was led in the victory by Provance (five kills, a block), Olson (four aces, 12 service points, 18 assists), Brooklyn Sheddy (five kills, an ace, six points), Audry McNabb (four kills), Tessa Krull (two kills, two blocks) and everywhere defense by libero Alyssa Zellers.

“Tips weren’t really going to work tonight because both teams really moved well and weren’t out of position,” Champene said. “You had to hit to win, and luckily for us, we had a few more find open space than they did. I also thought we served aggressively, which is what you have to do to win this time of the season.”

“Very crazy, very nerve-racking, but very exciting,” Olson said. “We knew [Coal City’s] setter ran a 5-1 and she’s shorter, so when she was in the front row we wanted to try and set to her side as much as we could. We felt like if we could take advantage of that matchup the line would be open, but we also wanted to make sure we hit the middle as well so their middle blocker couldn’t cheat to help out on the sides.”

After the quick Seneca start, Coal City was able to cut the disadvantage to 20-17, but from there the Irish scored five of the final seven points to take the upper hand.

“We had a typical Coal City start tonight,” Coal City coach Pam McMurtrey said. “We’ve asked the girls what we can do to try and come out faster and we’ve tried about everything we can think of, but sometimes we just don’t get off to good starts. Our serve receive was not as strong as it normally is. ... We ran our setter ragged for much of the match.

“I felt like we did a good job of finding our rhythm after the slow start and made a push in the first set, then the second set we had a couple of solid scoring runs, but then Seneca would come right back with one of their own. We just could find a way to get that crucial point when we needed to, and they did.”

Coal City was led statistically by 12 kills and two blocks from Emma Rodriguez, three kills and three blocks from Abby Viano, two aces each from Sydney Larson and Margaret Carlson, and nine points from Addison Hodgen.

The Coalers used four-point serving runs by Larson and Carlson to hold a 19-15 second-set lead and led 24-21 after a kill by Rodriguez. But from there, the Irish used a kill by Franki Meyers, two by Sheedy, a block by Krull and aces by Sophia Touvannas and Sheedy to close out the match.

“Our communication was so good tonight,” Zellers said. “Everyone was talking and letting each other know what they were going to do. Defense is all about communication and spacing behind the block and next to each other. I feel like everyone did a great job of both those things tonight. Coal City has some really tough hitters, so you have a good block, which I thought we did, and good back row spacing to try and cut down as much open space as you can.

“I thought we did that pretty well.”