After winning a district tile in 2024 and a league title in 2025 the Cardinal Huskies’ girls’ volleyball team has combined both feats this season. The Huskies authored a new milestone in school history, topping Cornerstone Christian Academy 19-25, 25-18, 25-23, 25-17 to capture the Ohio High School Athletic Association Division VII Northeast 1 district title last Thursday evening at Grand Valley High School.
“Winning district championships are special because you have the immediacy all of the time that if you are not successful, your season is over and the matches are always very pressure packed which makes it exciting,” said Coach Michael Chaffee.
Cardinal is (21-4, 16-1) the third volleyball team in school history to earn a district title and league championship in the same season. If the Huskies defeat Northside Christian in the OHSAA Division VII regional semifinal on Thursday night, they will face either Mogadore or Campbell Memorial in the regional final on Manfield High School’s Pete Henry Gym on Saturday evening at 5 p.m.
“It is the greatest of opportunities,” noted the third-year coach. “I know that we have scrimmaged and played against Campbell Memorial multiple times. We played Mogadore at the end of the year so I could not be happier for both that they made it to the regional tournament and we are thrilled to be there.”
On Thursday, the Huskies had a challenging start to the match, losing the first set 25-19 to fall behind 1-0 against Cornerstone Christian Academy.
Chaffee acknowledged that Cardinal could not find its footing in the first set.
“A lot of things didn’t go right for us in the first set,” he added. “We were tentative, we did not serve well, I think we were so ramped up that we could not get into a flow, and I think we were overly excited about it.”
He acknowledged that it was not an easy feat to recover from a slow start in a district title match and decided the best way to rally the team was to not talk about the intangibles but take the break between sets to lighten the mood for his squad, giving them some emotional relief.
According to Chaffee, one of the Huskies’ five core values is to have fun, and he said he reminded them of that value during the break.
Although Cardinal trailed at the beginning of the second set, the team rallied late to take the second set 25-18.
The Huskies faced another early deficit in the third set and trailed 23-19 but staged a 6-0 run to stun the Patriots and earn the 25-23 victory, surging ahead 2-1.
Chaffee said that Cardinal did not need a timeout to rally, as sophomore setter Lucy Kelpper fueled the Huskies’ comeback by recording four aces in their unanswered run of six consecutive points.
“Lucy serves more of a floater, and she had found a good target to follow-up with, and she kept the ball out of their libero’s hands, which was one of our goals, because she is outstanding,” he noted.
Although trailing early in each of the first three sets, Cardinal had a 2-1 lead after the third set, and Chaffee praised his team’s resilience to take a lead on the Patriots despite slow starts to the first three sets.
Cardinal carried momentum from the third set into the fourth set, holding a commanding lead throughout the set and cruised to a 25-17 victory, propelling the Huskies to their second district championship in three years.
Before the 2024 season, the Huskies’ last district banner had come 27 years prior, but Cardinal has now captured two district championships in the last three years since Chaffee took the helm.
“I think we have established ourselves as a very solid program and our success is program-wide,” he said. “What I mean by that is that we have a good youth program, with very dedicated people running it. We have a good junior high program and junior high coaching, and I am blessed with a great staff and although we are a Division VII school, we have 29 kids playing in our high school programs this year.”
While most of the players from the 2024 squad have graduated, the Huskies still returned core players with significant experience to pace the 2026 squad in senior libero Adelyn Grant, senior middle hitter Olivia Krebs, senior defensive setter Natalie Soltis and had returning experience from last year in Klepper and sophomore outside hitter Lily Rulong to fuel Cardinal’s run this season.
