ASHLAND - It wasn't a perfect match by any means for Ashland, but it didn't have to be.
After sweeping five-seed Ontario (5-18) in a Division III sectional championship 25-10, 25-16, 25-18, the top-seeded Arrows got exactly what they needed after more than a week off.
"I'm very happy to have this match to get tournament jitters out of the way before we move on to districts next week," coach Jenise Vaughn said. "It was a really good opportunity to get our kids in, and every single varsity player got to see the floor tonight. They deserved that, they work hard in practice every day."
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Ashland's goal in the postseason opener was to start strong and storming out to an 8-1 lead forcing a timeout from Ontario coach Marlene Garber was about as perfect as Vaughn could've imagined.
"One of our goals was setting the tone and being the first to five points and I thought we played a tremendous game in set one," Vaughn said. "A lot of credit goes to Ontario, every team come tournament time is battling for their lives so you're going to see high emotions and teams that aren't going to give up ... they continued to battle, but I'm proud of how we closed this out in three."
The Warriors did make the Arrows fight in the second and third set staying within striking distance, but never got close enough to really make a charge at the end of either.
"We had an idea of what they were going to be like, we watched a lot of film and practiced based off of what their defense runs," Garber said. "Their defense is kind of similar to ours and we said — what's our weaknesses ... what can we build off of that and try to use that to our advantage with them? I think it definitely worked, they had some open spots we were able to hit at times, so I was proud of them."
Any time Ontario would start to make a run, the Arrows found a way to quash it and answer with a bigger run of their own. Sophomore Kyla O'Brien's hot hand serving in combination with Ashland's offensive depth made for a quick night with the match taking just over an hour.
"Her serves tonight were wicked, she was doing a great job of getting us on runs," Vaughn said of O'Brien, the Arrows finished with 11 aces. She's such a versatile player for us, so it was really exciting to see that come to fruition tonight.
"And I'm really happy with how our middle played tonight. Sadie Walter was an animal in the front row both blocking and hitting. And complementing her with Makenna Oslie and Ryland McFrederick on the outside, it's just hard to defense. I'm excited with how we can get multiple players involved in our offense."
While Ashland is moving on, Ontario's tumultuous fall comes to an end. The Warriors opened the season 2-1 with wins over rival Lexington and Clear Fork before going on a nine-game skid. Three wins in the next five matches against Galion, Northmor, and Harding were followed by six consecutive losses to close out including Wednesday's against the Arrows.
"Our team is very young, we really only have one running senior (Piper Studer) right now," Garber said. "With her gone we have three juniors coming up, four sophomores, and about 10 freshmen. Definitely a young team, but we're hoping over the next few years we can build and grow something that — maybe by the time our freshmen are seniors — we'll have something big.
"It has been good, it's just a long process."
And if anyone understands a long process, it's the Arrows. They went 4-20 just four years ago — right before this senior class entered high school — and they've trusted the process along the way to tying the single-season win record with 22 and winning the program's first Ohio Cardinal Conference title since 2017.
Now they shift their sights to Monday's district semifinal (6 p.m.) against four-seed Tiffin Columbian, a team Ashland beat in four sets almost two months ago. But the Tornadoes have also won back-to-back district titles and are the team that has ended Ashland's tournament run each of the last two seasons.
"We had some success against them earlier this season, but when we've played them in the tournament in previous years, they've had the better results," Vaughn said. "We're excited to meet them again. They're a very dangerous team and they're very aggressive, so we'll practice that over the next few days and we'll be ready."
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This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Ashland sweeps Ontario, sets up district semi rematch with Columbian