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Cardinals Headed Back to Elite Eight

Wheeling Jesuit’s Breanna Kramer bumps the ball during the NCAA Division II Regional Championship on Sunday. Photo by Cody Tomer

WHEELING — Sunday evening was one for the history books at Wheeling Jesuit as the Cardinals earned their sixth consecutive Atlantic Regional Championship and head coach Christy Benner collected her 500th victory to advance to the Division II National Championships in Sioux Falls, S.D. on Thursday.

Both marks were achieved thanks to a Jesuit sweep of third-seeded Edinboro by scores of 25-15, 25-19 and 25-15 at the Alma Grace McDonough Center. A match the Cards controlled from start to finish, trailing for one serve.

“I am super excited for the team, this group of girls, the six seniors and the fact that we get to go next week and play for another National Championship,” Benner said. “I don’t know if it will happen but we will do our best.”

Regarding her 500th victory, Benner just found out last week that she was even approaching the mark but she gave all of the credit to her players.

“Someone just let me know last week and I had no idea,” Benner said. “Matt (Benner) and I have done this together for 15 years. When we first started, I never thought I would coach for 500 matches, not to mention win 500 matches together.

“Its the girls. They push us to be better. We have goals and its fun to win. We work our butts off to get to this level and we want to stay there. I want to say thank you to Wheeling Jesuit University for allowing us to expand the program and get us on this level and back us the way that it has.”

The Cardinals never trailed during the first two sets and was led by Lauren Graves’ five kills in the opening set, while senior Kayce Krucki tallied four.

Breanna Kramer delivered three consecutive points to begin the second set and give the top-seeded Cardinals a 3-0 edge early and they never looked back.

Senior Haley Kindall recorded the final kill of the set to give the Cardinals a 2-0 advantage heading into the third. Kindall and Kramer each garnered five kills in the second set.

There were a total of seven ties in the third set and Edinboro even held a 6-5 edge at one point but Jesuit quickly answered before taking the lead permanently.

Senior Emma Schleucher reeled off the longest scoring streak of the match in the third with five straight points to turn a 15-12 lead into a 20-12 advantage, all but punching Jesuit’s ticket to South Dakota.

“I want to congratulate Edinboro,” Benner said. “They are a great team, making it this far and they fought the whole weekend. They gave us everything that they could and they never stopped. They are very well coached and congratulations to them.

“I really feel like they came out and served us tough. They had a good blocking scheme against us and changed up their defense quite a few times. We were just able to adjust a little bit, our middles played very well, we blocked well and covered well.”

Latoya Hutchinson paced Edinboro with 11.5 points and 11 kills, while Sydney Trathen handed out 24 assists, Jordan Van Oss collected 13 digs and Challen Litwiler added 10 digs.

“Wheeling Jesuit is a very solid defensive and disciplined team,” Edinboro coach Missy Soboleski said. “I was very impressed with their ability to run their offense at will. They did a great job.

“We struggled with our ball control. We couldn’t get the ball to our setter consistently to where we could run our offense like we wanted to.”

Wheeling Jesuit was led by Kramer who turned in 15 digs, 10 points and eight kills, followed by Krucki who supplied 12 digs, nine points and seven kills, while Kindall provided 16.5 points and 13 kills, senior Andrea Thobe dished out 32 assists and gathered 13 digs, Graves produced 6.5 points and six kills, Schleucher garnered 6.5 points and five digs and senior Sam Obringer added eight digs.

“Sam (Obringer) played really well in the back row,” Benner said. “She picked up a lot of tips.

“The girls were fired up and ready to play for this championship.”

One of the girls who was fired up for this title run is senior Katie Campbell, who believes that the experience of winning the National Championship last year can help the Cardinals make a run at a second trophy.

“I think since the six of us (seniors) have played together for four years now, we do a really good job of having a calm mentality,” Campbell said. “We have a together mentality so I think that helps with the experience we got from last year’s National Championship experience going in.”

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