Area volleyball teams split wins and losses; Newcomerstown, Indian Valley, Claymont highlight action

Cross country

Bellaire’s boys and girls swept the team races at the Newcomerstown Cross Country Invitational Aug. 30. 

Newcomerstown’s girls had four athletes compete. Leading the way with a 65th-place finish was Kaylyn Kinsey. The junior finisher in 24:25.29. Sophomore Liliana Lopez (100th), senior Maggie Smith (108th) and sophomore Ariah Gamble (128th) rounded out the Trojan competitors, who were among 142 finishers.

The top girl finisher was Isa Estadt, a junior from Shenandoah, who crossed the line in 18:56.1. A total of 14 girls teams scored, while 11 more had at least one runner.

Led by senior Trenton Wright’s 54th-place finish in 18:58.81, the host Trojan boys had three finishers. Senior Jacoby Tedrow crossed 113th and junior Landon Rodriguez placed 152nd. There were 159 runners and 17 scoring teams competing in the boys race. Connor Bendo of Union Local finished first in 16:11.06.

Cross country

In other action, running against standouts from some of the heaviest hitting programs in the state, Indian Valley junior Nolan Patacca turned in a stellar performance at the Ashley White Invitational on Aug. 30 at Marlington High School. Patacca finished in fifth place with a time of 17:11.7 in a 106-runnier field with athletes from the likes of Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary and Creston Norwayne, to name a couple. St. V-M edged Frankfort 120-125 for the team total.

Volleyball

Newcomerstown bounced back from an 0-3 start by winning a pair of matches in three outings last week. The Trojans sandwiched a pair of non-league victories over Bishop Rosecrans and East Knox around an Inter-Valley Conference loss to Strasburg-Franklin. All were straight-set outcomes. 

In the win over Rosecrans, Newcomerstown got an eight-kill night from junior Briley Little. Sophomore Diane Raber added six digs, five aces and five serve receptions, all team-highs. Senior Maggie Collins led with 22 assists. Against Strasburg, the Trojans got another eight kills from Little, 11 digs from Raber, 19 assists from Collins, and 19 serve receptions from senior Maddie Kadish. In the win over East Knox, Little led with 11 kills and three blocks, junior Abby Fauver had three aces and 10 serve receives, and Collins had 10 digs and 26 assists.

Indian Valley continued a hot start with a pair of wins against one loss to move to 5-1 on the season. The Braves beat Carrollton in four sets before dropping a tough one 3-2 to Wooster Triway, the bouncing back with a three-set Inter-Valley Conference win over Claymont.

Against Carrollton, junior Reese Polen led with 15 kills and 29 service receptions. Junior Lily Lewis added 10 kills and a team-best five aces. Junior Gionna Miles had 31 digs. Junior Brooklyn Abbuhl notched 34 assists

In the loss to Triway, a thriller with a 28-26, 25-22, 24-26, 23-25, 15-11 final score, Polen had 18 kills, Miles led with five aces and 34 service receptions, Lewis topped with 23 digs and Abbuhl had 33 assists.

The Braves beat Claymont 25-20, 25-18 and 25-16 to start the IVC-South conference schedule with a victory. 

Claymont had an up-and-down week with three wins in five matches. The Mustangs started things with a 2-1 non-conference win at home against Massillon Washington, before falling in two sets to Louisville in a tri-match. The Mustangs bounced back with a 3-0 non-league win over Edison but then dropped a pair of straight-set IVC-South matches to Hiland and Indian Valley, both at home.

In the early going, sophomore Elah Davis and senior Lilly Riker are battling it out for the Mustangs lead in kills with 61 and 60, respectively, through the first eight matches. The pair is also first and second in aces, Riker with 19, one more than Davis, who had a team-best 90 assists, three more than senior Jilli Poletti. Sophomore Hayden Lawhun led with eight total blocks. Senior Ava Edwards paced the team with 138 digs and 143 service receptions.