Strongsville’s volleyball team is where the Mustangs’ football team wants to be. On the hardwood, the Mustangs were conference champs, state-ranked and among the elite. Under the lights, the football team struggled.

Both would like to have done more. The volleyball squad went 20-5 and won the Greater Cleveland Conference with a 13-1 record, but fell short of winning a district championship.

“It’s a good season. I just told the girls I’m very proud of them,” Strongsville volleyball coach TR Harker said. “They won a very difficult conference and finished in districts in second place in a very tough district. Certainly we wanted to go farther, but I’m not disappointed.”

The Mustangs will move on without their biggest hitter, Noelle Reinhart, who will graduate after sending down a team-leading 313 kills. They have a nice heir apparent there, though, in freshman Sam Csire, who was third with 144 kills, despite missing nearly half the season. Kirsten Powell, a junior, had 154.

They will also return second-team All-Ohioan Christina Grecol, who was second on the team with 250 digs, third with 34 blocks and had 752 of the team’s 701 assists.

Also graduating will be digs leader Sophia Colabianchi, along with solid players in Anne Pappandreas, Jessica Wilson and Taylor Baszynski.

Back, though, are junior Kirsten Powell. Sophomore Sam Fillar, junior Ashley Quirino, and freshman Katie Paltani, among those who appeared in the majority of the Mustangs’ matches.

“The coaches and I were talking about that senior class,” Harker said. “It’s a great group. Strong players, from the front row and the back row. We’re really going to miss them. With three of them being from the back row, it’s going to take a lot to fill those shoes.”

It wasn’t like Harker needed a handkerchief, though.

“We’ve got a lot of young talent,” he said. “We’re going to be good for a long time.”

It was a trying year to say the least for coach Larry Laird’s football squad. The Mustangs never really got going, winning in Week 3, but then enduring a five-game losing streak. They beat Elyria for their lone GCC victory, but fell badly to archrival Brunswick in the season finale.

Yes, five of the eight teams that beat Strongsville were playoff squads. However, three weren’t, indicating the Mustangs have a way to go to return to some semblance of relevancy.

“Everybody is competitive and it gets very difficult when the team is struggling,” Laird said. “And we struggled a lot due to the youth of the team.”

Laird said patience, while perhaps a virtue, was sometimes difficult to summon with so many young players in key roles. This is a team, though, that patience should pay off for, with a baker’s dozen of sophomores having started at times along with a handful of juniors. Don’t expect the Mustangs to stay down long.

“We feel with a healthy and hardworking offseason we have a chance to be pretty good,” Laird said.

Sophomore quarterback Jony Major established himself as a player to watch. He should be back throwing to the likes of fellow sophomores Joe Gillette and Kevin Lawler, along with junior Omari Peek. Junior running back/linebacker Tommy Zacharyasz also should be a centerpiece.

The Mustangs will move on without a large senior class. The Class of 2017 not only had to lead the underclassmen, but step aside for them in many cases.

“Our seniors will be missed for their showing the younger groups how to prepare and come to work even when we struggled,” Laird said. “On Mondays it was difficult to tell whether we had won or lost because of the attitudes that the seniors instilled in our kids.”