Dalton is a state champion for the first time. The Bulldogs beat Parkway 3-2 in the Division VI girls volleyball state final on Friday afternoon, Nov. 13, at Wright State University’s Nutter Center in Fairborn — 25-21, 13-25, 25-20, 16-25, 15-12 — to win the first volleyball state title in school history, The Times-Reporter reported in its live coverage of the final.
The final started 35 minutes late because the Division I championship match before it ran long, Stateline Sports Network reported, and it then delivered the tightest finish of the day: four split sets, a fifth set that stayed within reach until the end, and a 15-12 Dalton closeout.
Dalton finished its historic season 28-1, ending the year on a 12-match winning streak that included sweeps in 10 of its last 12 matches, The Times-Reporter reported. Parkway, in its fourth trip to the state final and playing for a third state title, finished 24-4 as the Division VI runner-up, Stateline Sports Network reported.
The Bulldogs’ path to the final ran through a familiar rival. Dalton swept Sugarcreek Garaway 25-22, 25-23, 25-17 in Thursday’s state semifinal, The Times-Reporter reported, after beating Wayne County Athletic League rival Hillsdale in a five-set regional final at Barberton on Nov. 7, the Mansfield News Journal reported.
That regional win carried its own drama: Dalton fell into a 9-0 hole early in the third set against Hillsdale, then ran off a 25-11 stretch to steal the set and a 2-1 lead before closing the match in five, the Mansfield News Journal reported. The Bulldogs had finished as regional runners-up each of the previous two years, the News Journal reported.
Garaway arrived at the semifinal on a 10-match winning streak of its own, and the first two sets were decided by a combined five points before Dalton closed the sweep on a 6-2 run to end the third set, The Times-Reporter reported. The win extended Dalton’s streak to 11 and put the program in a state final for the first time, the Times-Reporter reported.
Parkway reached the final the hard way, too, outlasting Midwest Athletic Conference rival St. Henry in five sets in Thursday night’s semifinal — 25-21, 16-25, 23-25, 25-23, 15-10 — Stateline Sports Network reported. The Panthers were back in a state final for the first time since their back-to-back titles in 1996 and 1997, the network reported.
Dalton’s title was part of a crowded championship weekend at the Nutter Center. On Friday, as NewsForce247 reported, Fenwick beat Ottawa-Glandorf in four sets for its third state volleyball title, and on Saturday, Versailles swept Coldwater in straight sets for the Division V state title.
The championship also caps a long build under head coach Amanda Clear, a Dalton alumna in her 13th season leading the program, the Mansfield News Journal reported. The Bulldogs’ senior class went 75-6 over its final three seasons, the News Journal reported — a run that included those two regional runner-up finishes before Friday’s breakthrough.
The timeline of the final, as The Times-Reporter and Stateline Sports Network reported it: Dalton took the opener 25-21, Parkway answered 25-13, Dalton edged the third 25-20, Parkway forced the decider 25-16, and the Bulldogs held off the Panthers 15-12 in the fifth — leading 12-9, 13-10 and 14-12 on the way to match point.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on: confirmed are the 3-2 final and set scores, Dalton’s 28-1 record and first state championship, and Parkway’s 24-4 runner-up finish, reported consistently by The Times-Reporter and Stateline Sports Network from the OHSAA box scores. The official all-state teams and the program’s championship celebration details in Dalton are still to come.
For a village school in Wayne County, the title rewrites the program’s history in one afternoon: three straight regional-final trips, two runner-up finishes, and then a championship won in the only way this team seemed to know how — in a fifth set, with the season on the line.
What happens next: the Bulldogs bring the Division VI trophy home to Dalton, where the 28-1 season and the school’s first state volleyball championship will be celebrated by a community that followed the team through three straight deep November runs, The Times-Reporter reported.
Photo: SilentMatt Psychedelic, CC BY-SA 4.0