By SCOTT NOVAK
Dowagiac Daily News

STEVENSVILLE – It was supposed to be a Class B district championship game between Lakeland Conference champion Edwardsburg and Big 16 runner-up St. Joseph.
It was more like a war.

The Lady Bears got the better of the Lady Eddies in the fifth and deciding set to capture the district volleyball title at Lakeshore High School Thursday night.

The two teams split the first two sets, but it was all St. Joseph in the final set.

Edwardsburg got off to a fast start, withstood a strong Lady Bears rally to take the first set 27-25.

St. Joseph (31-21-2) responded to take the second set 27-25 to knot the score at 1-1.
The seesaw battle had the Lady Bears blowing out the Lady Eddies in the third set to take a 2-1 lead after a 25-17 victory.

Things didn’t look good for Edwardsburg at the start of the fourth set as St. Joseph opened up a quick 3-0 lead behind kills by Samantha Helsley and Kathryn Snyder.

A pair of hitting errors by the Lady Bears allowed Edwardsburg to tie the match at 3-3. A kill by Elise Mackling, a hitting error and serving error led to a 7-4 Lady Eddies advantage, while a block by Edwardsburg, another service error by the Lady Bears and a kill by Emily Kozinski extended Edwardsburg’s lead to 10-6.

St. Joseph came back to cut the lead to 11-10 forcing Edwardsburg coach Sarah Benjamin into a time out.

The match went back and forth from that point on with neither team being able to gain more than a two-point advantage.

The set was tied at 12-12, 14-14, 15-15, 17-17, 19-19 and 20-20 before a big block by the Lady Eddies gave them a 21-20 advantage.

The lead was short lived.

St. Joseph tied the match at 21 and again at 22 before a Lady Bears hitting error had Edwardsburg (26-16-7) out in front 23-22.

A pair of aces from Jenn Mackling finished off St. Joseph and sent the match to a fifth and deciding set.

There was no keeping the Lady Bears from the championship in the fifth set as St. Joseph raced out to a 6-0 lead behind the serving of Kaitlin Mavis and the hitting of Katherine Yircott and Snyder.

“It was a tough loss,” Benjamin said. “The girls didn’t have a good start (in the fifth game). We had some bad passing tonight and our serves kind of killed us.”

After Ellen Miller dumped a ball over the net to score the first point for Edwardsburg, St. Joseph outscored the Lady Eddies 3-1 to take a 9-2 lead and force Benjamin into a timeout.

The lead reached 11-3 on a kill by Snyder and following a trio of errors the advantage was 13-4.

Paige Colvin’s knocked down back-to-back kills to end the match and Edwardsburg’s season.

“We beat them harder in the first game, then they beat us in the second game, so I thought we were still in the match,” Benjamin answered when asked how important the second set was. “It was kind of surprising that we got beat badly in the third game.”
Snyder led the Lady Bears with 11 kills, while Yircott finished with seven, as did Helsley. Snyder also had five aces and Ellery Karsten four.

Elise Mackling led the Lady Eddies with 15 kills, 40 digs and an ace.

Kozinski finished with nine kills, five digs and a block, while Miller had seven kills and five blocks.

Edwardsburg also got six kills 15 digs and an ace from Allie Koontz and five kills and six blocks from Erin Burks.

Jenn Mackling finished with 39 assists and Maddi Mueller 28 digs.