AT THE NET — Harrison Central’s Lauren Doane (9) and Kennedy Dunlap get a block on an attack from Buckeye Local’s Allison Emfield. - Mike Hughes

CONNORVILLE — Buckeye Local entered Wednesday’s home match with Harrison Central with a record that featured just one win.

The Huskies previously bested Buckeye in a mutual season opener in straight sets, but the Panthers were competitive throughout.

Harrison head coach Grace Godich knew her team needed to come prepared and not get complacent, despite the Panthers’ struggles.

They responded appropriately, playing solid throughout and limiting mistakes in taking the match in straight sets, 25-20, 25-9, 25-8.

The win improved Harrison to 11-7 with a road date at St. Clairsville tonight as the final opportunity to pick up needed points for the OVAC tournament cutoff.

“I told them to go out with a good mindset, confidence, and positivity, and we’ll get out of there pretty quickly,” Godich said. “There’s lots of potential on Buckeye. The last time we met, it was pretty back and forth and we told them we couldn’t let that happen.”

Buckeye switched up its rotation on the fly in effort to jumpstart its attack.

Head coach Abbey Wilson noted that she’d been wanting to make the switch, but with back-to-back games this week, there was no time to practice it prior.

So she opted to make the switch to start the match, and initially, it worked.

Buckeye dropped the first set, but the close 25-20 score was encouraging.

Then the consistently problem which has plagued the Panthers all season reared its head the remainder of the match.

“We changed our rotation,” Wilson said. “It’s been a rough year in terms of consistency, so we tried something new and we don’t get to practice much with three games in a row, so we just tried it.

“It went good the first set, but the second wasn’t quite as good and the third wasn’t as well.”

Buckeye started having issues getting off proper attacks as sets near the net were few and far between.

A solid attack here and there was mixed with attack and receiving errors, and with Harrison’s play spot on throughout, the Huskies lead continued to grow.

“That’s been a problem of ours,” Wilson admitted. ‘We can’t get a solid game together. We’ll play great in a set, and then we’ll lose by 10. We can’t keep it together for a full game.

“We have moments of good play and then not so good.”

Lauren Doane paced the Huskies attack with nine kills, backed by six from Olivia Tonkovich and four from Maddi Zeroski.

The final three of four points came off the serve of Hannah Grady, the last two of which clipped the net and dropped down before Buckeye could get a chance to receive and set up an attack.

Harrison entered the week in fourth place in Class 4A and this win, coupled with a win against St. C. today should be enough to hold off Weir for the fourth spot in the OVAC tournament.

For Godich in her first season at Harrison, it would be a major accomplishment.

“It’ll be an amazing thing,” Godich admitted. “That was one of our goals to be in the top four of OVACs and hopefully we can accomplish that.”

Allison Emfield, Jenna Delvecchio, and McKenna Halicky each finished with four kills for the Panthers.