Mike Burich / Morning Journal Crestview’s Grace Auer (4) and Abbey Emch (20) go up to block an attack from Smithville.

BARBERTON — It has been 23 years since a school from Columbiana County won the Div. III Barberton regional tournament.

Crestview made the argument on Thursday against Smithville that no one should count the Rebels out no matter who is next in the tournament.

Putting together a complete match that kept Smithville out of its offensive sets, the Rebels, ranked No. 4 in Div. III by the state coaches’ association, earned a 25-15, 25-14, 26-24 win to advance to the 2 p.m. regional final on Saturday at Barberton High School.

Crestview’s opponent?

Last season’s Div. III state champion: Mentor Lake Catholic (26-0).

Oh, and by the way, the Cougars, who beat Independence in straight sets 25-14, 25-7, 25-18 in the late match, are ranked No. 1 in Div. III and are likely the best team across any division in the state of Ohio. Lake Catholic is ranked No. 21 in the country by SBLive and No. 24 nationally by Maxpreps.

“If there is any year that we can give them a fight, I feel like this is it,” Crestview coach Alisha Auer said.

Thursday’s match against Smithville seemed fairly even on paper. Smithville and Crestview both played Div. III district runner-up Mineral Ridge in the regular season with Crestview winning in four games and Smithville three. Crestview also swept Dalton in the district semifinal while Smithville swept the Bulldogs twice by comparable scores in Wayne County Athletic League play.

The 27-0 Rebels played like they wanted to send a message instead, and the Smithies got it.

“Crestview’s serving was great,” Smithville coach David Yoder said. “We weren’t in system 95% of the night, and that was all dictated by them. They were in control most of the time. If you play in control, you’re going to roll. When we did get into our offense we were sending easy stuff over and when you send easy stuff it comes back really fast.”

Senior Grace Auer led the team with 21 kills, 17 assists, an ace and 17 digs. She said nerves were not an issue after losing in her previous three attempts at regional play.

“This is kind of like my home gym since I’ve been here three other times,” Grace Auer said. “We were used to the environment and we just had to talk to each other and just not be afraid to make mistakes.”

Auer said a nap earlier in the day got the team in a good place to make a run at the regional final. And make no mistake, the team needed to be on its best game since the region is loaded.

Coming into Thursday’s action, the four teams in the Barberton regional had dropped a total of 35 sets and seven matches on the season. Six of those match losses and 22 of the set losses belonged to one team in Independence.

Crestview’s goal against Smithville was to limit 5-9 senior middle hitter Naomi Kieb. Kieb, an All-Ohio basketball star for the Smithies who is looking to play college basketball, had averaged 5.7 kills per set coming into Thursday’s match. Taryn Fath, the Smithies’ junior setter, was averaging 11 assists per set.

Kieb finished with 13 kills, well under her average, and Fath only had 24 assists.

“We knew that (Kieb) was going to get her kills and get her blocks and we had to slow her down,” Alisha Auer said. “Abbey (Emch) did a real nice job.”

Emch, the Rebels’ 6-3 University of Pittsburgh recruit, had 11 kills, five blocks and 17 digs. Lainy Auer backed up her sister’s strong match with five kills, 21 assists and 11 digs. Emily Downey had 13 digs and three aces — including the final one that put the Rebels into the regional final. Julia Blasko had 16 digs on defense but added some white-knuckle serves in the final game to help the Rebels come from four points down midway through to win the match.

Blasko, who watched last season’s regional tournament from the bench due to transferring from South Range, felt like the team wanted it more this time around, but there was still a lot of pressure.

“I felt so much pressure with the student section behind me saying ‘Go number 11’,” Blasko said. “It was kind of distracting but I feel like I play better under pressure.”

Natalie Blakeman added nine digs on defense, and Katie Lissi had three kills as well.

Smithville fell to 25-2. The Smithies were ranked No. 5 in Div. III.

The Rebels know they will need a superhuman effort Saturday to defeat Lake Catholic, but a lot of the players on the team have inspirational role models in their own households.

In 2021, the Rebel boys soccer team advanced to the state final in Columbus by beating a lot of teams that many thought they had no chance against.

Grace Auer’s dad was the coach on the team and her brother Mitchell scored in the final. Many other girls on the Rebel team had brothers that played in the championship.

“It gives me so much motivation because every day they’re always like ‘We made it to state,'” Grace Auer said. “I hope it’s our turn this year.”

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