NORFOLK — Homer played host Norfolk Catholic tough in the early going of Saturday’s C2-4 district championship match and were in a position to tie the match before the bottom dropped out.
Norfolk Catholic ran off nine straight points midway through the second set, turning an 18-14 deficit into a 23-18 advantage. That momentum carried over into the third as they sprinted to a 9-2 lead and never looked back, earning the trip to state with a 25-21, 25-20, 25-10 win.
The Homer girls ran off three straight points in the second set and held an 18-14 lead, highlighted by a Janessa Overgaard block and a tip by Chayce Abts, putting them in position to tie the best-of-five match after Norfolk Catholic won a closely-contested opening set.
After Norfolk Catholic regained the serve, three straight kills tied the match and three Homer errors helped the hosts complete the nine-point turnaround and they never looked back from there.
Homer got off to an early lead in the first set with kills by Tori Walker and Taiah Bird. Norfolk Catholic built a four-point advantage at 13-9 and Homer couldn’t get any closer than two the rest of the set, despite kills by Harris and Overgaard and a solid two-hand rejection by Overgaard that forced Norfolk Catholic to call a timeout with a 21-18 lead.
Homer built a quick 3-0 lead with kills by Harris and Bird in the second set and made it 9-5 after a kill by Abts and a Norfolk Catholic error. Back-to-back errors by the hosts made it 18-14, forcing a Norfolk Catholic timeout that preceded the key second-set rally.
That turnaround seemed to drain the energy out of the Homer side in the third set. A Harris kill got Homer to within one at 3-2, but that’s as close as they would be the rest of the night after a key six-point run that included four aces in five points by Norfolk Catholic. By the time the run was over, it was 9-2 and Homer had nothing left to counter the attack.
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