‘The best loss.’ Notre Dame wins 10th volleyball title, but Dunbar makes history, too.

The 2022 KHSAA State Volleyball Championship included two pieces of history Friday night at George Rogers Clark High School.

For Notre Dame Academy, it meant a 10th state crown, which remains second only to Assumption’s 22. And the Pandas got to personally deny the Rockets more glory with a come-from-behind 3-2 win in the semifinals.

“We’ve always had faith in each other as a team that we were going to win,” said Notre Dame senior libero Kamden Schrand, a Louisville commit whose team came into the tournament ranked No. 4 in the state behind Assumption, Mercy and Sacred Heart and outlasted them all in the postseason. “We knew it was a possibility if we worked really hard and we believed in each other and just did everything that we could.”

For state-runner up Paul Laurence Dunbar, it meant the No. 5 Bulldogs’ deepest ever run in the state tournament to become only the third public school in the event’s 44-year history to reach the championship game. Greenwood did it in 2011, Henry Clay in 2016, and, now, Dunbar.

“It’s been so fun. This is the best way you could end the season — the best loss you could have,” said senior Nyla Gaines “Our goal was to get to state, and we got to the championship.”

Week of celebration for Notre Dame

The Pandas began play Thursday in Winchester without head coach Leslie Litmer, whose firstborn child decided tournament eve was as good a time as any to arrive.

Litmer had not yet been discharged from the hospital when the Pandas faced Assumption on Friday afternoon in the semifinals. She walked into Cardinals Arena as a spectator during their first set against Dunbar. It was associate head coach and alumna Jenna Leistner who navigated Notre Dame for the final three legs of their championship.

“She made it down and I wouldn’t have wanted anybody else right there those last couple of points with me,” Leistner said of Litmer. “We make a great team.”

Notre Dame dominated Whitley County in a sweep on Thursday, but No. 1 Assumption had the Pandas on the ropes in Friday’s semifinals, taking Sets 2 and 3 after Notre Dame had won the first. The Pandas rallied for the five-set win, 25-15, 22-25, 21-25, 25-22, 15-7.

“It was a lot versus Assumption during the semifinal match to kind of just take a deep breath, (say) ‘We’ve got this,’ and move forward as a team,” Leistner said.

Playing the late afternoon game to five sets didn’t leave much time to get ready for the 7 p.m. championship game, however. They only had about an hour to themselves to relax, Leistner said.

“Our bodies were dead, but we came back and we knew that we could win this,” Schrand said. “We used every ounce of energy that we had.”

Dunbar fought Notre Dame point-for-point in the first set, only yielding slightly when the frame reached the 20-point mark, enough to let it slip 25-22. From there, Notre Dame settled down and took control to complete a championship match sweep, 25-11 and 25-16.

Sydney Nolan led the way for Notre Dame with a match-high 19 kills to help earn tournament most valuable player honors. She was joined on the all-tournament team by teammates Peyton Mast and Schrand.

“I think we were a little out of sorts in the first set,” Schrand said. “It was kind of like a warm-up and we knew after the first set that we’ve just got to play our game and do our thing.”

History for Dunbar

The Bulldogs’ noon game against Bowling Green got off to a slow start as the Purples continued the form that helped them rally from a 2-0 deficit against McCracken County the day prior.

Bowling Green won the first set against Dunbar, 25-18. The Bulldogs didn’t panic.

“We kind of woke up after that first set and just turned things on from there,” senior Ava Jackson said.

Dunbar took the next three sets 25-16, 25-21, 25-22 to secure the program’s deepest-ever run in the tournament. Coach Jenni Morgan has taken six Dunbar teams to state and reached the semifinals twice in her 18 years.

“I’m super proud of them,” Morgan said. “They played all season with a target on their back and they just continuously came out to battle. They did everything that they set their mind to do regardless of what was going on. They overcame a lot of obstacles and stuck together as a team.”

Dunbar lost seven of eight games late in the season as the Bulldogs challenged themselves with a West Coast tournament trip and matches against Sacred Heart and Assumption, both losses, right before postseason play began.

“People questioned me why I did the season the way I did, and it’s because of this,” Morgan said. “They’ve got to play tougher competition to make themselves better. Win or lose, it didn’t matter. We had to always be better ourselves.”

A fitting tribute

At the close of Dunbar’s win over Boyd County on Thursday, the Kentucky High School Athletic Association held a moment of silence for the late Jason Howell, the Dunbar athletic director who died Tuesday.

A champion for Dunbar athletics for more than 15 years as a coach, teacher and administrator, Howell’s teams reached two state finals this month, earning the boys’ soccer championship last Saturday and finishing runner-up in volleyball on Friday.

But it has been a difficult week at Dunbar.

“When you have horrible situations that come. You have to lean on each other. They’ve been through a lot in the past year, and we had supports in place,” Morgan said. “Part of this is for him. If he could have been here, he would have been here in the districts. He would have been there in the region, and he would definitely have been here.

“I know he is watching, and he is prouder than he’s ever probably been.”

All-Tournament Team

Caroline Sivills, McCracken County; Carly Mullins, Boyd County; Jaelyn Brackett, Whitley County; Meredith Brown, Mercy; Kaia Barnett and Lily-Kate Carver, Bowling Green; Charlotte Moriarty and Whitney Woodrow, Assumption; Isabela Haggard, Ava Jackson and Delaney Gash, Paul Laurence Dunbar; Kamden Schrand, Peyton Mast and Sydney Nolan (MVP), Notre Dame.