Newman Catholic wins semifinal, one win from history

ASHWAUBENON - Newman Catholic has a chance to accomplish something that only one other girls volleyball team in the state has ever done before.

But the opportunity to make history wasn't on the mind of the Cardinals players Friday morning.

"Not really," Cardinals senior Mariah Whalen said. "We just want to win another gold ball."

Newman Catholic will have that opportunity now.

The Cardinals advanced to a fifth straight championship game with a 25-20, 25-10, 25-6 win over Seneca in a Division 4 state semifinal matchup at the Resch Center which lasted 59 minutes.

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Whalen had a team-high 23 kills and .525 hitting percentage. Junior Riley Vaughn added 22 assists and 14 kills, and junior Julianne Barkholz had eight digs and six kills as the Cardinals improved to 27-9 overall.

Newman Catholic faces Clayton at 9 a.m. Saturday. With a win, the Cardinals would become the first Division 4 team to win four straight titles and just the second program overall in state tournament history to accomplish the feat. Waupun won five straight Division 2 titles from 2001-05.

Newman Catholic beat Clayton in the state championship game in 2013. The Cardinals earned their way to the rematch with their fifth straight sweep in the postseason.

The Cardinals were pushed by Seneca in the opening set, but never trailed in either of the final two. Liv Swanson led Seneca with six kills and libero Alivia Salinas had 13 digs. Emily Garfoot had 11 assists to lead Seneca, which finished with a 32-8 record.

"We had talked about speeding the ball up and speeding the pace of the game up (after the opening set)," Vaughn said. "(We felt) being able to speed up our sets would open up the entire offense."

Newman Catholic also served 15 aces against Seneca. Whalen had three straight aces in a five-point run that gave the Cardinals a 19-5 lead in the third set.

"We kept (the serves) away from their libero (Salinas). She obviously had the best ball control on their team," Newman Catholic coach Betty Lange said. "We just wanted to go away from her and keep it aggressive with our serves and make some of their other (players) move out of service receive. I thought once we settled down we did a really nice job at the service line."

Vaughn had a kill in the opening moments and the Cardinals scored nine of the first 14 points in the opening set. Seneca answered with six straight points to take its first of four one-point leads in the set.

The last lead for Seneca came at 18-17 on Salinas' ace just inside the baseline.

Newman Catholic responded with four straight points, which culiminated on a tip kill by Vaughn, to take control late in the set.

The Cardinals continued that momentum in the second set. Whalen's kill was the first of 10 straight points for Newman Catholic to open the set

Swanson ended the Cardinals run with a block kill, but Seneca never got closer than within seven points of the lead.

The Cardinals had just five hitting errors and finished with a .464 hitting percentage for the match.

"Whalen is one of the top players (in the state) and we knew we had to block her and get low of things," Seneca coach Dawn Ray said. "In Game 1 it was working for us and we were going with everything that we had, but then she started getting smarter with her hits. She was going down the line and going everywhere we weren't."

Tim Johnson: 715-845-0731, or timothy.johnson@gannettwisconsin.com; on Twitter @timmyjo11