A third straight trip to the district championship round wasn’t a charm for the Kirtland volleyball team on Oct. 26. The sixth-seeded Hornets fell in three hard-fought games to top-seeded Dalton, 25-19, 25-20, 28-26, in the second of two Division VI district finals at Berkshire. It’s the third year in a row the Hornets (18-7) have finished as district runner-up, the previous two seasons coming in Division III before the OHSAA expanded volleyball playoffs to seven divisions this season. While Kirtland’s ends, Dalton (25-0) moves on to the Uniontown Lake Regional, where the Bulldogs will face second-seeded McDonald, a 25-22, 25-17, 25-22 winner over Mineral Ridge in the first match on Oct. 26. “We said last year that we could get back here again, and sure enough, here we are,” said Kirtland coach Ricky Sanders. “We’re going to continue to push and strive to get to regionals and state. This is three years in a row to get to this point. We just haven’t gotten over the edge. But we’re going to keep on pushing.” Against a ferocious Dalton offensive attack that includes three players with more than 100 kills this season — Sara Geibel, Maclain Stutz and Lilli Ediger — Kirtland held its own all afternoon in pushing the top-seeded team to the limit. Kirtland held a 4-3 lead in the first set before kills by Geibel and Ediger gave Dalton a lead it would never relinquish. Even though a kill by Kirtland’s Carmen Kalous cut the first-set deficit to 23-19 late, Mei Simmons ended it with a kill of her own. Kirtland fell behind, 10-4, in the second set before a 9-3 Hornet run evened things at 13-13 on a Andriana Grman ace serve. But three service points by Geibel helped open a four-point lead and the Bulldogs closed out the second set with a Stutz kill. The Hornets came out strong in the third, building an 11-2 lead with the help of eight straight service points by Grman and kills by Karlie DiFranco, Kristiana Katic and Emma Riebe, but a short while later, Dalton’s Chloe Ruehling rattled off six points to get her team back in the game. “This team is very smart,” Sanders said. “They can find holes and find shots. As long as we stayed disciplined, we’d be fine.” Kirtland held leads of 24-22 and 25-24 in the third set, but found itself trailing, 26-25, on a dump-ace by Dalton’s setter. Kirtland libero Nina Alfieri and hitter Riebe collided heads diving for the ball. There was a long delay before play resumed as medical personnel tended to the two injured players. It was a 26-26 game via a Katic kill, but back-to-back hitting errors by Kirtland ended the match and the Hornets’ season. “I’m very proud of how we played today,” Sanders said. “We left it all on the floor. I told the girls, hey, keep competing. As long as we keep competing, anything can happen.” The score Dalton 3, Berkshire 0