With a 3-0 win over Chardon in a Division II regional championship game on Saturday, Independence’s boys’ volleyball earned a return trip to the state Final Four.
“It’s very exciting,” said Independence coach Lexi Prokopius. “It’s a great feeling just knowing that we’re going back.”
The Blue Devils earned the No. 5 seed in the postseason and opened their run with a dominating 3-0 win over East Tech and then knocked off top-seeded Bard Early College in straight sets.
A 3-1 win over No. 3 seed VASJ in the semifinals set the stage for Independence’s 2023 regional championship matchup against second-seeded Chardon.
The Blue Devils beat the Hilltoppers 25-22, 25-14, 25-20.
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“Our mindset going into the playoffs was that we were the underdogs and let’s just go out and prove everybody wrong,” Prokopius said.
So far, so good as the Blue Devils won 12 of 13 sets played in the postseason and won their 12 sets by an average of over 10 points.
“I think that the biggest thing in the postseason was our energy and our communication,” Prokopius said. “In the regular season, we would get complacent after we would beat teams, and then we would let that creep up. Come the postseason, they played like every set meant something and they had the energy, and they were carrying the momentum from winning the regional semis into the regional final. Hopefully, they do that at state too.”
The Blue Devils open the Final Four against Cincinnati Archbishop McNicholas at Wittenberg College in Springfield on Saturday at 3:00 p.m.
Last year’s state tournament experience may help the Blue Devils to shake off the nerves they played with in a 3-0 state semifinals loss to eventual state champion Columbus St. Francis DeSales.
“I think that being used to playing at that huge gym in front of a bigger crowd is very helpful,” Prokopius said. “I also think that playing such a great team last year in that loss to DeSales helped them to realize they needed to work harder and have a faster-paced game. We’ve worked hard to play a tempo and faster-paced game, so I think that will be a lot better for us.”
