It’s playoff time for the Borgia volleyball Knights.
This past weekend, the Knights (4-16) played in the O’Fallon, Ill., Tournament, going 1-3.
Borgia defeated Bayless, 25-21, 25-12, for its lone victory.
The Knights received more good news Monday as Head Coach John Nieder learned that Ryan Maune was named to the all-tournament team.
Losses were to Francis Howell North, 25-13, 25-13, O’Fallon, Ill., 25-9, 25-15, and East St. Louis, Ill., 25-20, 21-25, 15-13.
Borgia will play in the Class 3 district playoff tournament at Webster Groves High School Saturday. The 16th-seeded Knights will play in a pool with top-seeded Webster Groves, seventh-seeded Kirkwood, ninth-seeded Ft. Zumwalt North and 17th-seeded University City.
Borgia’s matches, in order, will be against Webster Groves, Ft. Zumwalt North, University City and Kirkwood. Pool play begins at noon.
The top two teams from each district advance to the state quarterfinals.
“Our kids are still improving with each game we play and our goal this year is to get through our district and move onto the quarterfinals,” Nieder said.
O’Fallon Tournament
Borgia played Francis Howell North and O’Fallon, Ill., on the opening night of the tournament.
“We really couldn’t get into any sort of offensive rhythm in either of those two matches,” Nieder said. “We had a lot of troubles with player overlap calls, eight to be exact! We typically utilize a three-person service reception primary passing routine and that night we just couldn’t catch our defensive crossovers. Both O’Fallon and Francis Howell North played very well and we would had to have played a flawless match to have beaten either of them.”
The Knights played Bayless and East St. Louis on Saturday.
“On Saturday we changed a few of our play positions on the floor to try something new to improve our lineup,” said Nieder. “We moved 6-6 freshman Michael Ince to the middle hitting position and had Alex Severino hit strong side for a couple of rotations when he wasn’t setting from the back row. All in all we played pretty well and beat Bayless. It was nice to win against them after losing a close three-set match earlier this season.”
Against Bayless, Borgia was led by Maune, who ended with 11 kills, six digs, four blocks and one ace.
Severino and Ince each had five kills in the match. Severino also had 18 assists, four digs and three blocks. Ince added three blocks, one assist and one dig.
Tyler Howell recorded four kills, eight digs and one ace.
Korey Fumagalli had two kills, three digs and two blocks.
Alex Blechle finished with one kill, eight assists, five digs and one ace.
Jimmy Pak recorded five digs and one ace.
The Knights had a chance to win the Bronze Division title against East St. Louis. Borgia pushed it to a third game, but fell just short despite rallying from a five-point deficit.
“The last game was the championship match of the Bronze Division against East St. Louis,” Nieder said. “The first set we played very well with the exception of us missing eight serves. The second game we reduced our missed serves and unforced errors and came out a little more determined and won 25-21. In the third set both teams were playing well and there were several long rallies. The score went back and forth early on before East St. Louis started pulling away. It was 13-8 when we started our run as we closed the gap to 14-12. The last point ended with a long rally which included a couple of judgmental non-lift calls on both teams before East St. Louis finished the match.”
In the match, Maune led the way with 15 kills, 10 digs, three blocks and one ace.
Severino checked in with seven kills, 21 assists, eight digs and three blocks.
Howell posted five kills, 16 digs, one block and one ace.
Ince ended with four kills, two blocks one assist and one dig.
Blechle had one kill, nine assists and five digs.
Fumagalli recorded one kill, six digs and one block.
Pak had seven digs and one ace.
In the Francis Howell North match, Maune was the kills leader with eight. He also had seven digs, two blocks and one ace.
Severino had five kills, 10 assists, four digs and two blocks.
Howell had one kill and 10 digs.
Pak recorded one kill and added four digs.
Blechle had five digs and four assists.
Fumagalli had two digs and one block.
Ince ended with two blocks.
Joe Rhyne recorded four digs.
In the match against O’Fallon, Maune had five kills, six digs and three blocks.
Severino ended with four kills, eight assists, five digs and three blocks.
Blechle had four digs and three assists.
Fumagalli had one kill, two digs and a block.
Howell picked up one kill and eight digs.
Ince had one kill, three blocks and a dig.
Brendan Joyce posted one dig.
Pak and Rhyne each had four digs.
