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Perrysburg celebrates its upset of St. Ursula in the Division I regional volleyball final yesterday at Norwalk. The Yellow Jackets reached the state tournament for the first time since 1981.
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Yellow Jackets upset Arrows in regional volleyball final

Yellow Jackets upset Arrows in regional volleyball final

NORWALK, Ohio - Potential met reality yesterday as the Perrysburg Yellow Jackets finally hit full stride in dethroning perennial northwest Ohio volleyball power St. Ursula in the Division I regional championship at Norwalk High School.

The unranked Jackets (21-6) - who have three future Division I college players in their lineup - won their 11th straight match in eliminating the second-ranked Arrows 25-23, 22-25, 25-20, 25-19 to earn their first state semifinal appearance in 25 years.

Perrysburg was Class AAA state runner-up in 1981 after winning the big-school state title in 1979.

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The Yellow Jackets will play top-ranked Cincinnati Mother of Mercy (23-4) in a state semifinal at about 7 p.m. Friday at the Nutter Center in Dayton.

"We've always had amazing talent here," Perrysburg coach Jeff Beck said. "But these girls just never found a way to bring it out, whether it was coaching moves or positions we put them in or whatever. We haven't been able to let our true talent shine.

"This year, they have. I hope people realize now that we're a legit team, and we're going to keep going. We're going to go to the Nutter Center and continue to play hard and see what

happens."

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For St. Ursula, it was the end of a run of six consecutive trips to the D-I state tournament. The Arrows (23-4) were unbeaten champions in 2004, runners-up in 2000 and 2005, and lost in the semifinals in 2001, 2002 and 2003.

This was just the second loss for SUA in its last 150 matches against teams from northwest Ohio, and snapped a 12-match winning streak.

It is unusual for the first game of a best-three-of-five match to be labeled as "pivotal," but this one may have been an exception. The Jackets fell behind 23-17 late, but rallied to score the last eight points for an emotion-boosting win.

Although Perrysburg would drop the second game, the Jackets had gained the confidence necessary to keep the Arrows out of sync in the final two games.

In the end, the difference for Perrysburg was a greatly improved defensive effort, solid back-row passing and the pinpoint set work from senior Amber Lopez, which led to some solid attacks from senior outside hitters Melissa Szkutnik (26 kills) and Chelsea Campbell (22 kills).

"You have to never give up on a game because it's not over until you hit 25," Szkutnik said. "After we got that first game out of the way, we figured if we could get one game we could get the rest of them."

Perrysburg was clearly the aggressor.

"It seemed like we were on our heels the whole match," St. Ursula coach John Buck said. "Give credit to Perrysburg. They played full throttle and just kept putting the pressure on us. They forced us to give them a lot of free balls, and they were just teeing it up and swinging away."

"We played our hardest and left everything out on the court," Campbell said. "That [first game] gave us a lot of confidence. When we won that first game we had the momentum. That was so crucial."

Lopez matched her season-high of 45 assists from Thursday's regional semifinal win against Rocky River Magnificat, and has raised her school single-season record to 801.

"Our passing was great today," Lopez said. "We didn't have a lot of serve-receive errors or defensive errors. When we pass great we have a lot of opportunities to put the ball away.

"From the first game, we felt like it today was our day, we deserve it, we've earned it."

Jacket senior Jordan Hamons pitched in with a team-high 25 digs in the match.

Junior outside hitter Alliya Drzewiecki topped SUA with 19 kills, and senior middle hitter Ashley Heyman added nine for the Arrows, who got a team-best 16 digs from senior Hailey Marvin.

Perrysburg sported a rather pedestrian 5-5 record 10 games into the season, but has now won 16 of its last 17 matches.

The Jackets, who finished in third place (11-3) in the Northern Lakes League this season, are the first NLL team to reach the big-school state semifinals since Springfield lost in the Class AAA semis in 1983. Maumee reached the D-II semis in 2003.

Contact Steve Junga at: sjunga@theblade.com or 419-724-6461.

First Published November 5, 2006, 1:51 p.m.

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Perrysburg celebrates its upset of St. Ursula in the Division I regional volleyball final yesterday at Norwalk. The Yellow Jackets reached the state tournament for the first time since 1981.
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