St. Xavier volleyball joins McNick in advancing to state final game

The Ohio High School Athletic Association boys volleyball semifinals netted a McNicholas Rockets victory in their Division II match Saturday, helping them advance to their first state championship game. Immediately following, St. Xavier won its season rubber match with Olentangy Liberty to send the Bombers to the Division I state finals.

McNicholas (22-5) defeated Independence (12-7) at Wittenberg University 25-15, 25-12, 25-18 after falling in the same round last season.

St. Xavier (26-1) knocked off Liberty (25-2), the only team to beat the Bombers this season, to reach its first state final since 2019. After dropping the opening set, St. Xavier dominated the rest of the way to win 19-25, 25-16, 25-13, 25-10.

Who will McNicholas, St. Xavier see in the boys volleyball state final?

The McNicholas and Independence matchup was the second Division II semifinal of the day following the St. Charles and St. Vincent-St. Mary showdown.

St. Charles swept the match 25-23, 25-16, 28-26, setting up a third meeting with McNicholas in 2024. St. Charles (25-2) defeated the Rockets in four sets on April 6 and took another victory two weeks later. In both matches, McNicholas took the opening set before dropping the rest in the losses.

"We've done our homework on them," McNicholas head coach Julie Mulvey said of St. Charles. "We figured out who they're going to serve. We watched all of our matches. We know who they're going to go to and who they trust on their pins and if they trust their middle.

"We've done our homework. We plan on putting up a great stop against them."

The Division II state finals will kick off the championship at noon Sunday at Wittenberg with the Division I finals to follow at 3 p.m. In the Division I finals, it will be the Bombers against Cleveland St. Ignatius who swept Hillard Darby.

The Bombers met St. Ignatius on April 6 in a tri-match, beating the Wildcats in four sets.

How did St. Xavier boys volleyball win the 2024 state semifinal?

Just four points into the match with Liberty, the Bombers had to burn a timeout down 3-1. Senior outside hitter Andrew Berkemeier stepped on a teammate and rolled his ankle and limped around as head coach Bill Ferris called a timeout to give extra time for a trainer to look at him, deciding to remove Berkemeier for a short time.

Already facing an early deficit, the Bombers fell behind quickly and were at set point to the Patriots 24-14. It took five set points for Liberty to put away St. Xavier, but the momentum started to shift.

"Even though the score looked really bad, we had a little bit more of that momentum as the game went on. They got out on us early after that injury and we scrambled a little bit."

The Bombers did as they pleased in the final three sets and nearly held the Patriots to single digits in set four. St. Xavier's defense also limited the Liberty attack, including senior outside hitter and Division I Player of the Year Caden Whiteside. Whiteside ended with 14 kills and 11 errors on 50 of the team's 104 attacks. As a team Liberty notched just 30 kills and had 21 errors.

"Our serves keep them a little bit off balance," Ferris said. "If (Whiteside) gets a set where he wants it, we're probably going to lose that matchup most of the time. If we make his setter work a little bit to get him a good ball, then he needs to make an adjustment also and that gives us the opening we need."

Who stuffed the stat sheets for St. Xavier volleyball?

St. Xavier is loaded with offensive and defensive weapons, including senior setter Aidan Berkemeier who had 55 assists in the four sets against Liberty.

"His leadership is unbelievably valuable to this team," Ferris said of the first-team All-Ohio selection.

Sophomore Joe Taggart was missing when the Bombers lost to Liberty in the Centerville Elite. In the semifinal, Taggart had 16 kills.

"I thought he started out a little slow in game one," Ferris said. "Once he settled in, he became close to unstoppable. He's got that kind of talent.

"We knew when we lost to them in Centerville that he's worth a couple of points a game and that's all that game was. We lost by a couple of points in a couple of different sets."

Taggart was second on the team in kills, following Andrew Berkemeier's 18 kills and Ohio State commit Brady Jones was right behind with 15 kills. The offense was spread evenly to the three by Aidan Berkemeier and all three attackers ended with more kills than Whiteside.

"Without all four of us, we're not a team," Taggart said. "One of us makes the other one and we push each other to our limits at practice and our gameplay. If you take one of us off the court, another one can't strive and produce what they need to."

At the net, Aidan Berkemeier, Jones and Noah Boyett notched solo blocks while Max Romeo assisted on four. Jones also assisted on another three blocks.

How did McNicholas boys volleyball win the 2024 state semifinal?

A service error from Ethan Gundrum gave Independence a 7-6 lead in the opening set, but the slow start for the Rockets turned around quickly and the group responded by taking 19 of the next 27 points to take the set 25-15.

"We always have a slow start," Mulvey said. "I don't know if it is nerves or what, but we always have a slow start in the first set. Independence was scrappy. They were playing everything up, getting it back over the net. When we were out of system, we didn't have that scrappiness. The second we started playing scrappy and we started playing with a little intensity, we started putting balls down and taking control of the match."

The Blue Devils attacked at a negative clip in set one, finding only four kills to seven errors. The issue grew in set two as Independence managed just a single kill in the second set with four more errors.

The first 10 of Independence's 12 points in that set two came from McNicholas's attack and serve errors before the Blue Devils secured a kill from Landon Jatsek and an ace from Wyatt Snyder to cut the McNicholas lead to 24-12. Bryce Dillard, McNicholas' only senior, ended the two-point run with a kill to take the second set 25-12.

The Blue Devils managed just 11 kills the entire match, fewer than Gundrum had by himself and matching Gavin Gerhard's solo total while getting an error on 14 attempts.

"That's what we want," Mulvey said. "We want them out of system, swinging through our block. We want them to be intimated by that block and obviously, it worked well. They had some errors and had to try different things."

Who stuffed the stat sheets for McNicholas volleyball?

The Rockets had two players reach double-digit kills to lead the offense. Gundrum notched 13 kills on 22 attacks while Gavin Gerhard followed with 11 kills in 24 attempts. Carson Tierney and Dillard followed with six kills each. Gerhard also had five of the team's 10 service aces. Gundrum had 13 assists to match his kill total.

Ben Jones led the way for McNicholas with 23 assists, adding 13 digs. Kevin Kaser led overall with 17 digs.

For the Blue Devils, sophomore setter Jamie Panichi had all 11 assists for the team. Senior Landon Jatsek led with four kills and only had a single error in the match.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: St. Xavier and McNicholas win OHSAA volleyball semifinal bouts