By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
Three high school volleyball teams that have won 38 of the 43 Kentucky state championships will play in the lower bracket quarterfinals of this year’s state tournament on Thursday at George Rogers Clark High School in Winchester.
One of those perennial powers is 9th Region representative Notre Dame, a nine-time state champion. The Pandas will take a 31-5 record into its match against Whitley County (25-14) at 5 p.m. Thursday.
Long-time Catholic school rivals Assumption and Mercy of Louisville will square off in the other lower bracket match at 7 p.m. Thursday. Assumption has won 22 state championships and Mercy owns seven first-place trophies.
None of the teams in the upper bracket quarterfinals has ever been in a state final. Those matchups on Thursday are McCracken County vs. Bowling Green at noon and Lexington Dunbar vs Boyd County at 2 p.m.
Notre Dame has a 22-1 record against in-state opponents this season, including two wins over Assumption and one over Mercy. The only loss was to Louisville Sacred Heart in the second match of the season on Aug. 17.
The leading hitters in Notre Dame head coach Leslie Litmer’s lineup are 6-foot-3 senior Sydney Nolan with 434 kills and sophomore Ava Tilden with 244. Nolan, a University of North Carolina recruit, was a sophomore starter on the Pandas’ 2020 state championship team.
In the opening round of the state tournament on Monday, senior Peyton Mast had a team-high 16 kills in a 3-0 win over Paintsville that pushed her season total to 217.
Notre Dame’s other senior veteran is libero Kamden Schrand, who was voted Defensive Player of the Year by the Kentucky Volleyball Coaches Association. The University of Louisville recruit has 505 defensive digs in 107 sets for a 4.72 average.
The Pandas use sophomore Lauren Ott and freshman Lizzy Larkins as setters in their rotation. Ott has a team-high 629 assists, followed by Larkins with 486. The other team leaders are sophomore Julia Grace in service aces (34) and freshman Audrey Dyas in blocks (73).