BEAVERCREEK — The youthful Beavercreek High School girls varsity volleyball celebrated a pair of birthdays in grand style, Thursday night Aug. 22, as the Beavers defeated Greater Western Ohio Conference foe Wayne in straight sets, 25-10, 25-14, 25-9.
Moments after the Beavercreek win, the team turned and sang Happy Birthday to first-year coach Joe Baylor and teammate Ana Pholmann. Baylor was celebrating his 50th birthday, and the two were greeted with a ginormous doughnut and an orange and white birthday cake.
“We’re really really young this year. We graduated seven players last year, and we had a young lady that would’ve been a junior who decided not to come back to play this year, so I’ve got 10 new faces on varsity this season,” Baylor said.
According to the team roster, those “new faces” are Sarah Brown, Emily Corbitt, Lexi Gibson, Ceci Kennedy, Holly Lefevers, birthday girl Ana Pohlmann, Cassie Smithwick, Korina Swiderski, Tessa Walling and Peyton Bundy.
They join senior returnees Michelle Fath, Grace Phillips, Emma Tetlak and Gabby Turner, with first team All-GWOC junior Anna Shoemake.
Beavercreek had claimed the early 25-10 first-set win in less than eight minutes (before the writer arrived), and so stats were not available for that set. But Phillips had six kills, Brown hit four, Swiderski hit two, Kennedy, Corbitt and Smithwick hit one each, while Lefevers served up an ace and Turner notched a pair of kills to go with a block and an ace, in the final two sets.
“This is a very talented team. We have a tournament this weekend (Saturday, Aug. 24 at the Miamisburg Invitational), and then we have a really tough match on Monday against Lebanon. So, that will tell us a lot about where we are right now. We played well tonight, though,” he said.
After the Miamisburg tourney, Beavercreek (2-0, 1-0 Greater Western Ohio Conference American division) has a battle with perennial post-season power Lebanon next at 6:45 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 26 at BHS.
Unofficially, Wayne’s Krystal Anda had three kills and an ace, while teammates Ericka Reed and Bryana Howard both had two kills apiece. Wayne (1-2, 0-1 Greater Western Ohio Conference, American division) lost in straight sets for the first time this season. The Warriors head to Kettering to take on Fairmont at 6:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 27.
