![Central Catholic celebrates with the state title trophy after defeating Orion in the Class 2A state final game. (Joe Ragusa/WJBC)](https://www.wjbc.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/389/2015/11/2015StateVolleyballChampionshipCelebrationJR.jpg)
By Joe Ragusa
NORMAL – Central Catholic is the Class 2A state champion after defeating Orion 25-20, 25-21 Saturday afternoon at Redbird Arena.
The Chargers (40-1) came into the title game undefeated but Saints coach J.R. Banister said that didn’t intimidate his team.
“Everybody coming in here, we’re all the same record,” Banister said. “Starting in the postseason, everyone is 0-0, that’s the way we look at it.”
The Saints (35-5) fell behind in the second set by six points but staged a comeback, finishing the set on a 12-2 run. Banister said the team has been down before.
“We were in the same place in regionals. We’ve been down in other games throughout the matches we’ve had to get to here,” Banister said. “We talked about (during a timeout) staying in control, getting our passes down so that we could get our middle (blockers) involved again and then just go back to running our offense.”
Junior Maddie Holt had 26 assists and 14 digs in the match. She said she’s thankful for the fan support this season.
“This whole postseason we’ve had great support from our school, like our teachers and all of our fans,” Holt said. “It’s been really nice to have a huge crowd this whole postseason and really our whole season, we’ve had a lot of fans come out, so it was nice to have them here today.”
Junior Maddie Malinowski led the Saints’ attack with 10 kills while Junior Kate Hoerdemann recorded 18 digs and seven kills.
Central Catholic ended its season on a 21-game win streak.
Joe Ragusa can be reached at [email protected].