Catholic falls to Portland in Class AA volleyball state championship game

MURFREESBORO — Brent Carter issued a challenge. Catholic was down two sets and the defending state champion needed to find a way to get back in the TSSAA Class AA Volleyball State Championship.

“Our coach looked right at us,” Maddie Vanderhoofven said, “and he said, ‘You need to dig down, you need to give it all. This is your last game. Give it all you can.’ ”

It worked. Catholic came back with a big third set and was in the fourth. But the Irish couldn’t hold off Portland and fell 25-17, 25-18, 11-25, 25-23.

When the Irish and Panthers met Wednesday in the preliminaries, Catholic had the upper hand.

“I think when we played them the first time, they saw last year’s state champs and we got on them,” Carter said. “But they played three great sets of volleyball today and that was enough to beat us 3-1.”

Portland come out hard and fast on Thursday. If the Panthers had been intimidated by the defending champion the first time around, they didn’t look like it this time.

Catholic largely played the way it wanted to. Portland just did more.

“The first time we played, we were there,” Vanderhoofven said. “We just had to play harder. We all worked but they had more aggression and fought through.”

The Irish felt they had turned the tide after the third set and played a back-and-forth fourth, until a hit sailed long at 23-23 and Portland had the opening it needed to close them out.