Boys volleyball: Medina competes but falls to St. Ignatius

CLEVELAND — The Medina boys volleyball team felt like it was swimming in shark-infested waters Wednesday night during a 25-19, 25-15, 25-11 non-league loss to St. Ignatius. Medina (11-2) kept close with the defending Division I state champion in the first set, trailing 18-16 before the Wildcats scored five points in a row to pull away. The Bees took some positives from that set. "What that first set showed me was that we can compete at that higher level," Medina senior Oliver Singer said. "We were playing hard. We were working as a team. I think it just proves to us that we can play at that top level that they are competing at." The key to success for the Bees in the first set was all about being on the same page. "We took from (that set) that we can compete at a higher level when we're working together as a team and we're communicating as a group and we're working for each other," Medina coach Chris Howells said. Unfortunately for the Bees, the match unraveled in the second and third sets, as St. Ignatius became more confident with each big hit and Medina felt the pressure. At that point, the Bees showed a lack of confidence and the Wildcats pounced. "Let's give where credit's due. When you have a great team and they see you put your heads down a little bit and you start to see that decrease of confidence, they're going to attack you," Howells said. "They did exactly that, and job well done to that team. That's a great team. "They're a top team in the state for a reason, and for us being a younger team overall, this is the opportunity that we could take and learn from it and set our bar of Medina style volleyball at that level." "My coach in the huddle said it was like a shark sniffing blood in the water," added Singer, who led the Bees with seven kills and added two assists and two aces. "As soon as they saw that little bit of weakness, they kept going and going. They kind of just beat us down, and we just couldn't find our way back up." Brayden Howells led the Bees with five assists and two kills, while Ashton Knowles added three kills. The Bees will now have to take everything they learned and work on improving with nine regular-season games left. "We've got to work forward, move forward with it," Chris Howells said. "We have to look to tomorrow. Tomorrow's a new day and take where we can find those errors — whether it was mental or it was skill or physical — and come back tomorrow and bounce right back." Thankfully for the Bees, they don't have to wait long to put this loss behind them, as they play at Strongsville in a Greater Cleveland Conference game tonight. "I am an advocate that I would rather go into a game vs. a practice," Chris Howells said. "Hopefully we can apply that right away (whereas in) practices, we talk a little more about it and sometimes that takes away from it as well. I'm happy that we're going right back into a match tomorrow and learn from it and move forward." Contact Ryan Isley at sports@medina-gazette.com.