Bellevue drops 5-set thriller against Galion

BELLEVUE — Bellevue and Galion going long was no surprise. For the fifth time in six years, the two went the distance in volleyball, but Bellevue came up short this time. Galion needed three match points and fended off one Lady Red match point to take a wild 25-18, 23-25, 25-20, 21-25, 18-16 non-league win Tuesday night. "We are a very up and down team right now," Bellevue coach Liana Petitti said. "We're working on becoming more consistent — not too high or getting too low. That's a strong emotional rollercoaster on top of the physical part of the game." The two teams have met every year since 2014 and not once has a team won in straight sets. Galion now owns a 6-5 overall lead with each team claiming three five-set wins over the course of 11 meetings. "Our conference is nothing short of excellent, so it's awesome to have a team out here who is going to challenge us right off the bat," Petitti said. "That's how you learn and how we're going to get better." Bellevue (0-1) led 13-11 in Set 5 following an error by the Tigers (1-0), but Galion stormed back. A net violation on the Lady Red and kills by Madelyn Schieber and Maddy Roseberry gave the Tigers match point at 14-13. Bellevue kept fighting and a kill from Finley LaPata knotted the set at 14. Another net violation by the Lady Red was offset by a serve into the net by Galion. Bellevue even brought up a match point of its own when Kaitlyn Turinsky put down a kill, but it was the last point the Lady Red won. An error evened the set at 16 before yet another net violation gave Galion match point. Then, a lengthy rally was ended when Roseberry clobbered a kill to win it for the Tigers. "I think unforced errors cost us," Petitti said. "Unfortunately we had three net calls in that set. When it's to 15, that's hard." Galion led 4-0 and 5-1 early in Set 5. Bellevue got back in it as Turinsky tallied a pair of kills and Audrey Turner registered an ace. The Lady Red tied it at 11 on a LaPata kill. "We started really slow," Petitti said. "We did an amazing job coming back after being down 4-0. It's a short set. You can't afford that." The teams were even through the first eight points of Set 1 before Galion pulled away slowly. The Tigers used a 6-1 run to open a 15-7 lead. Bellevue got as close as four points, but kills by Schieber and Roseberry put Galion ahead early. The Lady Red bounced back in Set 2, but not without making it difficult on themselves. Bellevue raced out to leads of 6-1 and 11-5, but the margin was cut to 13-12 and the Tigers later surged to the lead. Down 17-15, Bellevue took advantage of some Galion errors to go back ahead. Tied 23-all late, a serving error by the Tigers and a block by Brooke Brown evened the match. "One thing our girls always do is they always word hard," Petitti said. "They're super resilient. We expect that effort out of them. Grit is one of our cultural words and that's all we expect." Bellevue again had a strong start in Set 3, jumping out to leads of 5-1 and 9-5. A 7-0 run gave the Tigers the lead that they didn't relinquish. Galion pushed the advantage up near double digits and went up 2-1 on the strength of a Katelynn Claus ace. The Lady Red again kept fighting in Set 4. It was status quo as a quick start — 6-1 this time — gave Bellevue the breathing room it needed. Galion hung around and got within one point once, but the bevy of Bellevue hitters proved strong. Two more of Turinsky's team-high 13 kills helped Bellevue tie the match at two sets apiece. "This is our home court and we wanted to defend it," Petitti said. "We've been talking a lot about starting strong and refusing to lose. That was the mindset going into the fourth set." Kate Baptista led the Lady Red defense with a whopping 62 digs while LaPata had 54 digs and 10 kills. Brown and Lila Krall each lined eight kills, Ellie Freitag registered 21 assists and Payton Hicks had 19 assists. "The girls are willing to learn," Petitti said. "They're learning. They're trying. They're buying into us. Everybody is ready to play. We had a couple people come in tonight and they did their best. We are one team over everybody else."