There is nothing like a showdown between two of the top small school volleyball programs to get the home crowd excited. That is exactly what happened on Tuesday, as the top ranked Parkersburg Catholic Crusaders visited Tyler Consolidated in a rematch of the LKC Championship last year.

In front of a boisterous crowd, the Knights showed early that they were up to the challenge by playing their best volleyball of the season. Parkersburg Catholic took the early lead at 6-4 and rode the stellar play of Aaliyah Brunny for much of the early going. The Knights caught fire, however, and long volleys would lead to several lead changes in the first set, but the Crusaders prevailed 25-21 . The Knights answered back in sets two and three, winning both by scores of 25-23, 25-21. Down two sets to one, Parkersburg Catholic continued to fight and were able to force a fifth set, winning set four 25-20. The final set began with a flurry of aces by Catholic and the Knights found themselves in an early hole, with the score being 6-1. However, the Knights were not finished and made a valiant comeback to keep the final set close. The Crusaders hung on to win the fifth set 15-11 and took the 3-2 victory. Coach Summers was upbeat after the match, saying, “This was a good test for us and I’m happy with where we are at. Catholic has a very athletic team and we certainly had our chances. This was a great high school volleyball match and we will learn from it.”

On Thursday the KnightS traveled South and crossed the river to take on the Warren Warriors. “Warren is a large school with a great volleyball tradition and we look forward to this match each year,” said Summers. In the first set Warren was quick out of the gate and could do little wrong, scoring points from the service line as well as the front line.

Set one was won by Warren 25-12. Set two was much of the same with Warren winning by the same score 25-12. The final set was a closer contest, but the Warriors would prove to be too much winning 25-18. “We have a veteran team and I was disappointed our girls seemed surprised to see a gym full of people and a great team on the other side of the net,” said Summers. “On a positive we did do some things well and Warren is not in our sectional.”