Girls Soccer & Volleyball Teams For Mentor High, Lake Catholic Advance In Playoffs

The playoffs for fall sports kicked off in earnest Thursday with sectional finals for both the Mentor High and Lake Catholic girls soccer and volleyball teams.

And all four teams set the pace by dominating their opponents:

• The Lake Catholic volleyball team, which has the top seed in the Division II Jefferson district, swept West Geauga 25-9, 25-9, 25-14.

The Cougars next game is the district semifinals at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday against Mantua Crestwood.

• Likewise, the Cardinals volleyball team also swept their opponent Euclid 25-10, 25-12, 25-8. Jackie Ritt led Mentor with 11 kills, according to The News-Herald.

Mentor's district semifinal will be against Riverside at Euclid High School.

• Meanwhile, the Mentor High and Riverside girls soccer teams already faced off in soccer Thursday with the top-seeded Cardinals coming out on top 3-0.

Courtney Schutz notched both a goal and an assist for Mentor.

The Cardinals will face Eastlake North in the district semifinals 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

• The Lake Catholic girls soccer team won a close match against rival Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin.

Brittany Wiechlman scored the game's only goal to give the Cougars the 1-0 win.

Lake Catholic will face West Geauga in a district semifinal.

• The Mentor and Lake Catholic boys soccer teams begin their playoffs this Saturday.

The Cardinals play Riverside at 3 p.m. in Mentor. Meanwhile, the Cougars will play Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin at Lake Catholic.

• The Mentor boys cross country team won the Northeast Ohio Conference championship during what amounted to a home meet last Saturday at Garfield Park.

Mentor just edged Hudson 66-67 for the top spot.

The Cardinals' runners finished sixth (Jeff Gudowicz), eighth (Jared Keipert), ninth (Matt Evans), 19th (Joe Polakowski) and 24th (Tommy Kozlovich), according to cleveland.com.

• Neither Lake Catholic nor Mentor have anyone competing in this weekend's state tennis finals.