‘Cats Win Sectional; Succumb In Regional

Fresh off their second place finish in the OVAC Class-A Tournament and winning the Mason-Dixon Conference Championship, the Paden City Wildcats would go on to defeat Weirton Madonna and Bishop Donahue in the Sectionals and advance to Regional play.
In the opener of the sectionals the Wildcats defeated Madonna in straight sets, 25-11, 25-7, and 25-11. Dominique Craft paced the ‘Cats with 17 points, while Alli Bertozzi led with 19 kills.
Other Lady Wildcats contributing towards the victory included, Amanda Sellers with 16 assists on 22 sets, while scoring 15 points and three digs. Amanda Tallman chipped in with five kills and scored 14 points, including five service aces. Amber Palmer had four digs and nine assists, while Megan Cutlip added four digs and Amanda Heasley netted four points towards the semifinal victory over Madonna.
In the championship match against Bishop Donahue who had upset Valley in the semifinal in straight sets, hung around in each match, the Lady Bisops didn’t have the fire-power to knock off the Lady Wildcats. In the opening set the ‘Cats clawed their way to an impressive 25-16 victory, but had to dig deep down to win the second set 25-20. In the third set, Paden City used the duo of Sellers and Palmer to set up the right arm of Bertozzi for kills.
The duo dished off 60 sets with 30 of them going for assists, with 19 kills coming from Bertozzi. Tallman added seven kills and Cutlip nailed four kills, while Craft and Amanda Heasley tallied 13 and 11 points, respectively.
*****
The Paden City’s storybook volleyball season came to a halt in the regional semifinals against Williamstown Nov. 7 at Wirt County High School.
With three of the starters participating in the regional cheerleading competition, it took awhile for the Lady ‘Cats to get in the volleyball mode and they and lost 13-25 in the first set.
However, the Lady Wildcats jumped on the Yellowjackets in the second set and won, 25-15. But in the third and fourth sets, the ‘Cats fell behind and couldn’t catch, losing to the Lady ‘Jackets 10-25 and 15-25 to close out the Wildcat volleyball season.
Sellers and Palmer teamed for 79 sets in the four-set match, while each contributed 10 digs.
Craft led the charge with 12 points, while Sellers netted five. Tallman and Heasley each scored four points, while Bertozzi added two.
Bertozzi finished a fine season with 22 kills and 17 digs, while Tallman added 10 kills and five digs. Craft and Cutlip each added a pair of kills, while combining for 15 digs.
In addition to winning the WVSSAC sectional championship, the Lady ‘Cats were runnerup in the OVAC Class A and won the Mason-Dixon Conference championship.