One week before Seton hosted Mercy McAuley for a chance to win the Girls Greater Catholic League, the Saints welcomed in Mount Notre Dame, the MaxPreps ranked No. 1 team in the country.
Mount Notre Dame had defeated Seton earlier in the season in a close four-set bout, but at Seton's gymnasium, the result was different. The Saints took set one 25-23 and followed with a 25-10 win to take a 2-0 lead. Against the nation’s best, Seton was taken to just an extra point in the final set, winning 26-24 and taking the match. The first win against the Cougars since Sept. 29, 2016, put Seton in position for a share of the GGCL.
Seton has competed in 12 state volleyball tournaments, tied for the fifth most in the Ohio High School Athletic Association. The last time the Saints made it that far was in 2005 when they won the state championship against then-undefeated Toledo St. Ursula in five sets after being down 2-0.
“I think last year was a turning point for us,” senior captain Maggie Jones said. “We had our first winning season last year in a really long time. We didn’t play as well in the league as we did this year, but I think the winning record and the change in culture and all those good things we did last year led us to a good season this year.”
In 2020, Seton became a different program altogether, but Crowley, who was a coach at Seton during the 2005 championship run, won’t take credit.
“I’ll never take credit; it’s the kids,” Crowley said of the program’s resurgence. “We have a great group of seniors and underclassmen are buying in and believing and taking care of each other and being great teammates. Everybody understands their role and we’ll keep going forward."
Seton started out on Oct. 8 with a 6-1 record in the conference with one test to go while Mount Notre Dame was 5-1 with two conference games to go. If both won out, they would split the GGCL championship, but if one lost, a solo champ would be crowned.
Mercy McAuley took a 1-0 lead and then led 2-1, one set from ruining Seton’s conference shot. Seton played set four to a 25-20 victory and finally completed the comeback with a 15-8 fifth set win. Seton turned up in the final two sets when its three senior captains, Lucy Cluxton, Julia Marr and Maggie Jones, as well as junior Ole Miss commit Tessa Jones, found a groove and kept the Wolves at bay.
“I think we’ve been in this position so many times during the season,” Marr said. “There’s been games where we’ve been down 2-1 and I think during the fourth and fifth game was where we really locked in, especially me. I think we pulled together as a team and we were able to communicate well to find wha
t we need to pull out the fifth set.”
Marr also said the team felt some early pressures knowing the GGCL title was at stake, but pulled together like they have many times before and pulled out a win and left them scoreboard watching.
Some of that pressure may have been felt around the league and it made Seton’s scoreboard watching short-lived. Moments after taking a piece of its crown, the Saints reached out for the rest after Ursuline Academy took down Mount Notre Dame, giving Seton a solo GGCL title.
Betsy (Owens) Jones doesn’t get nostalgic watching Seton, but she sure could.
Jones grew up at Seton while her mom was coaching during Seton’s powerhouse run in the 1980s and grew up wanting to play as a Saint. As a junior in 1996, she led Seton to a 29-0 record and a state championship and was a senior on Seton’s last GGCL winner in 1997. After an All-American career at Mount St. Joseph, Jones started coaching and was coaching in Seton’s program for the 2005 state run. She was inducted into the Seton Hall of Fame in 2015.
She could get nostalgic at games, but instead, she just gets nervous watching her daughter, Maggie, set for the Saints.
“Every match I’ve just been taking it and trying to enjoy it knowing this is it, this is the last season at Seton,” Jones said of watching Maggie and the team. “I want to not be as nervous as I usually would be and just try to enjoy watching them play. I’m just thrilled they’re having success.”
Betsy was able to enjoy to watching Seton win the GGCL, but knew better than most that the Saints still had work to do in 2020 before everything could be fully enjoyed.
A good sign for Seton: the players, especially the seniors, know the work isn’t done yet. Six championship banners hanging over their heads serve as the perfect reminder.
“We’ve said all season that Seton is back,” Cluxton said following the win over Mercy McAuley. “We can’t end now. We have to keep going and hopefully, there’s a lot more volleyball to play.”
Cluxton was joined by her setter, Jones, in wanting to prove that the Seton volleyball program was back from lows.
According to Jones, there was one way to prove Seton was a force to be reckoned with and was back to a new high: “I think ‘back’ means we are a contender for a state title so I would say we are back.”
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