State champs! Cardinal Newman captures SCISA 4A volleyball crown
The Cardinal Newman volleyball team made sure there was no drama in Tuesday’s SCISA Class 4A volleyball championship match.
The Cardinals swept Porter-Gaud 3-0 (25-11, 25-15, 25-13) in front of a large home contingent at the Carolina Volleyball Center on USC’s campus.
It was Cardinal Newman’s fourth volleyball state championship and second in the last three years — but the first title in Class 4A, as the independent schools expanded to four classifications for athletics this year.
It was the fourth-straight year Cardinal Newman and Porter-Gaud met in the championship match, with the last two being five-set thrillers. Cardinal Newman won in five sets in 2020, and Porter-Gaud won last season.
“We were very motivated. After last year, we were like, ‘Let’s get back in the gym and do this,’ ” said senior Anna Logan Gillens, who is committed to play college volleyball at Delaware. “We took it very personal and were ready for this year. We wanted to take them down and that is what we did.”
The championship capped off an amazing few months for Gillens, who helped the U.S. Virgin Islands U19 and U21 volleyball teams to championships in the 2022 CAZOVA Youth and Junior championships this summer.
Gillens, Erin Allert and Christiana Greene set the tone early in the first set as the Cardinals trailed 6-4 before scoring 14-straight points to lead 18-6. The trio combined for eight of the team’s nine kills in the first set.
The Cards also trailed early in each of the next two sets before going on big runs to put the match away. The final point came when Porter-Gaud hit the ball into net and sent the Cardinal Newman players and fans into their celebration.
“We knew Porter-Gaud lost nine seniors from last year and it was a rebuilding year for them. But they were going to be right on our tails,” Cardinal Newman coach Cynthia Dimapan said. “We knew if we wanted to win it, we had to go out and crush it and not let them have a chance to get into the game.”
Cardinal Newman finished the year with 47 wins, the program’s highest mark during this four-year stretch of championship appearances. The Cardinals this season had several big wins over top public school programs in addition to their private school schedule.
Gillens led the team Tuesday with 14 kills and eight digs. Greene added 13 kills, while Allert had nine kils and three aces. South Carolina commit Victoria Harris had 13 digs, four assists and two aces. The junior missed over a month with an injury but came back strong in the three playoff matches.
This story was originally published October 25, 2022 at 9:36 PM.
