Perryville defeats Notre Dame to defend Notre Dame VolleyballFest title

Editor's note: The first name of Perryville's Marissa Erwin has been corrected from the version that appeared in print.

The Perryville volleyball team scored the first point of Saturday's Notre Dame VolleyballFest championship match when middle Marissa Erwin slid behind her setter for a booming cross-court kill.

The Pirates never trailed host Notre Dame in the game until the Bulldogs scored three consecutive points to prompt Perryville coach Dave Mirly to call a timeout with his team trailing 23-21.

"I actually went out and I tried to give them some confidence," Mirly said. "I said 23 points is all they're going to get, and we've just got to make sure we keep making good passes, keep making plays. It's going to be as hard as it can be. It's the hardest thing you've ever had to do, but 23 is all they're getting."

It turns out Mirly's prophecy was right twice.

After the timeout, the Pirates responded with a perfect pass on Notre Dame's next serve and four consecutive points on their way to a 25-23, 25-23 win.

"We lost seven seniors," Erwin said. "They think we're rebuilding, but I think we're going to come out as a huge surprise to all of our rivals. We're ready, and we're ready now."

Perryville fell behind early in Game 2 and lost seven of eight points during one stretch that gave Notre Dame a 20-15 lead. But the Pirates went on another run -- this time winning five of the match's final six points -- to close out the straight-game victory.

"Coach mentioned in the beginning of the summer that he didn't think we would be as good in the beginning," Perryville's Natalie Gremaud said. "I feel like we proved our point. We are ready now, and we're going after everybody."

Perryville also defeated Notre Dame in the title match of VolleyballFest a year ago before losing to the Bulldogs twice later in the season, including in the district title match.

"We've got a rough beginning to our schedule," Notre Dame coach Tara Stroup said. "We play Farmington right off the bat and then we play Ste. Gen and then Perryville. We've had some strong games.

"It's good for us though. You practice so long, we know there's things we need to work on, but until you see these other teams and what they have, your weaknesses stand out a lot more than they do in practice when we're playing each other."

Stroup noted Perryville's diversity on offense, saying it doesn't need to rely on one person for kills. That's something she hopes develops into a strength for her team as well.

"We just need to get more accurate passing on serve receive, and we've got to hit the ball," Stroup said. "I've told these girls that this is the best hitting team that I've coached overall, all the way down the bench. Everybody's a good hitter. That's our strength, and we need to use it."

Kate Edwards led Notre Dame with 10 kills, while Amy Wibbenmeyer had six and Miranda Fowler added four.

Gremaud led Perryville with nine kills and three blocks, while Erwin added five kills and two blocks.

"Our defense did phenomenal," Mirly said. "Shae [Leible], Morgan [Mueller] and Whitnie [Petzoldt] in the back row just made it so easy for our front row. We were able to attack them from different places and different angles.

"I feel our defense is really improved over last year. That's something that we work on all the time. We were able to come through."

Erwin and Gremaud both had tears in their eyes in the team huddle after the win.

"It's my senior year, and Notre Dame has been our rivals for so long," Erwin said. "It was a great game. I'm just so happy right now."

Both she and her coach know they'll likely play the Bulldogs for higher stakes later in the season. The teams will meet Oct. 3 at Notre Dame and again share a district assignment.

"Notre Dame's a good team," Mirly said. "Just because we got them this time doesn't mean we're going to get them next time. It could have gone either way. Both games could have gone either way. I guarantee the next time we play they're going to be gunning for us."