Middletown Bishop Fenwick is a state champion again. The Falcons defeated Ottawa-Glandorf 19-25, 25-20, 25-20, 25-21 on Friday, November 13, at Wright State University’s Nutter Center to win the Ohio High School Athletic Association Division IV girls volleyball championship — Fenwick’s first state title since 2019 and its third overall, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
Before the match, the Falcons held what their coach called a “culture talk,” and ended it with a line that became the day’s theme: “one more time, then forever,” The Cincinnati Enquirer reported. Head coach Tyler Conley explained to The Cincinnati Enquirer what the banner will mean to this group: “Any time they walk back in that gym, they know when they look up and see that 2026 banner that they had a hand in it, and we were all together.”
It did not start like a coronation. Ottawa-Glandorf took the first set 25-19, forcing 13 Fenwick errors as the Falcons were caught out of rotation and left gaps on the floor, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer’s match report. Fenwick answered immediately, winning a long, tone-setting first point of the second set on a Morgan Meiring kill and playing, in the Enquirer’s description, with a new fire from that moment on.
Senior Emerson Moser explained the reset to The Cincinnati Enquirer: “We always talk about whenever we’re down or something’s going wrong, there’s always some sort of nervous energy on the court, and we’re not playing like ourselves. When we’re playing at our best, our defensive energy is through the roof. Through blocking, through digging, there’s just a different vibe.” Meiring embodied the turnaround — after hitting -.167 in the first set, she hit .340 over the final three, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
The middle sets were a team display. Leading 21-19 in the second, Fenwick got back-to-back kills from Sam Long before Mia Schmitt tied the match at a set apiece, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer. In the third, when Ottawa-Glandorf pushed back from 16-13 down, Abby Keller dumped a ball for a kill, Meiring added another, and Andrea Ptaszkiewicz posted a block that kept the Titans at arm’s length. Fenwick also solved Kent State basketball commit Madison McKee, who had five kills and two blocks in the first set; she finished with six blocks, but the Falcons took her offensive production away, the Enquirer reported.
The fourth set tested the Falcons’ nerve one last time. Fenwick built its largest lead at 18-10, watched Ottawa-Glandorf close to 23-21, and did not waver: Meiring put away her match-high 22nd kill, and an Ottawa-Glandorf attack error ended it, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported. Conley credited the Titans afterward, telling The Cincinnati Enquirer: “They played great tonight. Their ball control was so much better than what we saw last night against Lake Catholic. For them to get back up 20 hours later and have to go four sets after a reverse sweep is such a credit to them.”
The title was carried by eight seniors — sisters Lizzie and Maddie Linklater, Keller, Meiring, Liz Whitton, Long, Bella Balcavage and Moser — a group Conley compared to the class that brought Fenwick its 2019 championship, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported. Ptaszkiewicz, Moser, Meiring and Keller were all named to the all-state teams this season, and Meiring and Keller chose not to play in college, going out on top in their final match. “It’s pretty special. I don’t think I’d want it to end any other way and I wouldn’t want to play with anyone else for my last time,” Keller told The Cincinnati Enquirer.
The championship also extends a Greater Catholic League-Coed run: for the second straight year, a GCL-Coed school has won both the boys and girls state volleyball championships, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported — McNicholas did it last school year, and Fenwick’s boys won their own title this spring. Fenwick finished 27-2, and its run through the state tournament included knocking off previously unbeaten Gallia Academy in the semifinals, part of a busy championship weekend that also saw Seton and St. Ursula meet in an all-Cincinnati Division I final and unbeaten Tiffin Calvert sweep into the Division VII final, as NewsForce247 has reported.
What happens next is the permanent part. The 2026 banner goes up in Fenwick’s gym, the eight seniors graduate as state champions, and Ottawa-Glandorf — which reached the final one year after its first Final Four appearance in 2024 and was still seeking the first title in program history — starts the chase again next fall. For one more time, then forever, the Falcons finished the season exactly where they meant to.
Read more: Seton and St. Ursula meet in all-Cincinnati Division I volleyball final · Unbeaten Tiffin Calvert sweeps into Division VII state volleyball final