KILLING IT — Edison’s Olivia Huff goes up to attempt a kill past Catholic Central’s Lilly Balzano while the Wildcats’ Meghan Maxwell looks on during Tuesday’s “Dig Pink” match. - Andrew Grimm

RICHMOND — Edison’s annual “Dig Pink” match is always a special night.

Getting the win against a local foe in front of nice crowd makes it that much better.

The Wildcats did just that on Tuesday night, topping visiting Catholic Central in four sets, 25-19, 25-16, 23-25, 25-10.

“It’s great to win this one,” Edison head coach Leah Eft said. “It was a great crowd, the community has had it rolling this year. The student section has been rocking. It’s a lot of fun for us to play in the new gym.

“We had some nice serves, our upperclassmen have really been working on their serving in our last few practices and it showed. We’ve been up and down, but once the girls start feeling more comfortable in their roles we’ll keep getting better.”

The night was much bigger than just the eighth win of the season for Eft’s group.

“We’re trying to raise money for Edison alum Kourtnie Leggett-Burch,” Eft said. “She’s battling cancer. She’s traveling to get treatments, so it’s really cool for us to be able to support her. She played for us back in the day, so it’s good for us to fight for her.

“The goal of this is to help a good cause and teach the kids what’s really important.”

The Wildcats (8-9) took the first two sets, then experienced some of those ups-and-downs as the Crusaders (7-10) opened up a big lead in the third set and seemed poised to extend the match.

They ultimately did, but not until Edison had clawed all the way back to within a point from 12 down.

“Edison has a couple of good hitters and we just couldn’t get their hits up,” acting Central head coach Grace Godich said. “We’re a short team, we do decent at blocking but sometimes they would get a quick set to a good hitter and we struggled with that. We’ve been working on it a lot in practice and we’re getting better, but (Tuesday) it hurt us.”

Central may have taken the set and stayed alive, but the momentum was all on the Edison side of the court to start the fourth as they opened a commanding 20-2 lead before the Crusaders started to battle back, scoring eight of the last 13 points, but the early Wildcats surge was way too much to come back from as they closed it out.

“Once they got moving, it hard to slow them down,” Godich said.

Despite the loss, participating in the event was also something important to Central.

“Obviously this was for a very good cause,” Godich said. “I remember playing in the Dig Pink games when I was playing in high school and I always loved it. We’re always up for supporting great causes. We were very happy to be a part of it.”

The Wildcats, who were also celebrating their seniors, got contributions from the quartet of 12th graders as Audrey Scott had 12 digs, four points and an ace, Olivia Huff tallied 12 kills, Morgan Martin recorded four digs and two points and Katie Fluharty finished with three kills and two digs.

Alexandra Ash added 14 kills, 22 points, seven aces, six digs and a block, Rebecka Evans tallied 27 assists, nine kills, four digs, nine points and three aces, Hailey Teichman recorded 19 assists, six kills, five digs, eight points and four aces and Kendra Teichman recorded seven digs, 13 points and four aces.

For the Crusaders, Haley Cherpko tallied three kills, four assists, a block, a dig, an ace and 11 points, Ava Marcino had three kills, eight assists, five blocks, three digs, an ace and 14 points, Karsen Blake had nine points and 10 assists, Anna Arai tallied four kills, six blocks, 12 digs and seven points and Lilly Balzano recorded 12 points, five kills, three blocks and 14 digs.

UP NEXT

Catholic Central: Hosts Shadyside for its senior night on Thursday.

Edison: Travels to St. Clairsville on Thursday to compete in the Buckeye 8 tournament.