Cavs down Indians (10/19/05)

COLDWATER, Ohio — All of the losses on the Indians’ record were to teams ranked in the state top 10. Not anymore.

The Coldwater Cavaliers, who are now 11-10, tripped up Fort Recovery’s volleyball team in its final regular season match 26-24, 25-20, 21-25, 25-21 Tuesday night.

“It was a good win for us tonight,” said Coldwater coach and 1993 Fort Recovery graduate Mandy Diller. “We really needed this. We needed this win.

“We finally got the ball up to our setter and were able to run an offense. Even though we had those times where we still let them win four or five points (in a row) we were able to finally just start passing the ball.”

Tribe coach Jackie Briscoe talked mostly about her team’s lack of focus after watching it slip to 13-9 overall and 4-5 in the Midwest Athletic Conference.

“I felt like the kids didn’t show up mentally,” she said. “Physically they were fine, but mentally they couldn’t do anything. We were tanking free balls out of bounds, hitting the ball out of bounds, serve receiving poorly. To me that’s mental.”

The Indians’ tendency to sleep-walk through the match was illustrated in the final game, which began with a Fort Recovery service error. The teams traded points early and the game was tied at 5-5 before Coldwater (11-10, 5-4 MAC) ran off seven of the next eight points.

The Tribe pulled back to within three points at 17-14, but another service error slowed its momentum. A kill by Lauren Wenning and an ace by Brittany Brackman helped the Indians overcome the error and cut their deficit to 18-17, but three straight attack errors pushed the Cavalier advantage back to four points.

On two more occasions the Indians got within three points, but down 23-20 another service error derailed their chances at a comeback and Karla Niekamp finished the match with a kill two points later.

“It just goes back to the mental part,” said Briscoe, who discussed poor blocking technique as well as the service and attack errors. “We would fight, fight, fight, fight, fight and then we would have a mental breakdown and they’d get the ball back.”

The Cavaliers showed their toughness after being called for serving out of turn in the second game. After about a five-minute delay to sort things out, the ball was awarded to Fort Recovery and the 19-15 Coldwater advantage was docked to 18-16.

However, after an Indian service error, the Cavaliers responded with a 4-0 run on the way to a 25-20 win and a two-games-to-none lead.

Fort Recovery gave itself a chance when it pulled out to leads of 8-2 and 10-3 en route to a game-three win, but Coldwater took advantage of the Tribe errors in the fourth game to finish the match.

“Sometimes it’s just like, ‘go play ball,’” said Diller. “Just go out and play ball and get the momentum and keep it. We got that momentum a couple of different times and it really helped us out.”

Lindsey Bruns led the Coldwater attack with 12 kills while Niekamp finished with 11. Marla Hess had 26 assists, and Brittany Klenke totaled 10 digs.

Tiff Gaerke came away with 29 kills, 17 digs and six blocks for the Indians, all team highs. She also had six points, including three aces.

Brittany Brackman had nine digs and seven points, and Lauren Wenning totaled seven kills and five blocks. Jennalee Post had 33 assists, and Holly Stein finished with eight points.

The Indians will try to rebound from the defeat when they play the Minster Wildcats (10-11) in the New Bremen sectional Saturday at 2 p.m. The winner will head to the sectional championship match Tuesday against top-seeded Division IV No. 4 New Knoxville (19-2).

“We just need to come and have three intense mental practices — good, strong, hard practices that we just go over the basic skills, remind ourselves that we’re a good team and just come out on Saturday and give it all we’ve got,” said Briscoe, whose team needed five games to beat the Wildcats early in the regular season.

“We’ve got nothing to lose. Nobody expects us to get out of the tournament draw right now.”

Junior varsity

Fort Recovery’s junior varsity team finished its year with just its fifth loss of the season, 25-20, 25-18 to Coldwater Tuesday.

Rachel Stahl served the Tribe to a 9-6 lead in game one, but it was downhill from there as the Cavaliers used a 10-3 run to grab the lead. Fort Recovery pulled even at 18, but Coldwater followed with seven of the final nine points to take the game.

Game two was also deadlocked, this time at 17, but the Cavaliers went on an 8-1 run to finished the match.

Abby Niekamp led the Indians (17-5, 4-4 Midwest Athletic Conference) with eight assists. She was second on the team in points and kills with four and two respectively.

Stahl finished with seven points and six digs, Sarah Braun had six kills and one block and Beth May notched 10 digs. Joanna Snyder, LeAnne Tobin and Annie Koesters each had a pair of kills.[[In-content Ad]]