Fort falls in five (10/25/04)

NEW BREMEN, Ohio — Using war terminology as an analogy for sports has become somewhat taboo. But when the Redskins and Indians got together on the volleyball court in Saturday’s sectional championship match, they waged a full-scale assault.

Fort Recovery played well enough to beat the team which has been ranked the best in Division IV all season, but it fell just a few points short in a tear-inducing 18-25, 25-22, 25-23, 22-25, 15-11 loss to the No. 1 St. Henry Redskins.

“It was a war,” said St. Henry coach Lori Schwieterman, whose team has been beaten just three times all season. “It was a definite war.

“We just survived. I thought we played in a fog. We had 10 days off since our last game. We had a lot of rust to shake off. I’m not sure we ever did shake it all off.

“We survived. Give Fort Recovery credit. They played well, real well.”

Two of the three losses for the Redskins (20-3) came against Division I schools, with the third coming against Division IV No. 5 Sidney Lehman. They had been pushed to five games just one other time, also against a Division I opponent.

But the No. 17 Indians were not intimidated. It showed on the court as they gave St. Henry the fight of its life.

“They fought so hard and they did so many good things today,” said Fort Recovery coach Jackie Briscoe. “They really (improved by) leaps and bounds this season. They worked very hard.

“This week their goal was to take care of New Knoxville — which was big for us, it took us five to take care of them — and then we were going to focus on St. Henry and just let it go. We had nothing to lose. We played like we had nothing to lose. We played with all our heart and it was so much fun to watch, but it just didn’t happen (for us).”

After losing in three quick games to the Redskins in the regular-season meeting between the two teams, Fort Recovery (14-10) picked up some confidence with a game-one victory Saturday. St. Henry took the next two games, but the Indians rallied to take the fourth to pull even at two games apiece.

The teams traded the first six points of the fifth game before St. Henry took a lead which turned out to be insurmountable.

The Redskins took advantage of a trio of attack errors on the other side of the net for a 4-0 run and a 6-3 lead. A kill by sophomore middle hitter Tiff Gaerke and a block from senior middle hitter Krystal Rammel got the Indians back within one, but they would get no closer.

Betsy Hoying notched one of her seven blocks against Gaerke to get the ball back for St. Henry, and Kayla Lefeld followed with an ace. The Redskins scored another point for a 9-5 lead, forcing Briscoe to take a time out.

Fort Recovery scored the next two points on kills by Megan Wenning and Rammel, but never cut the deficit to fewer than two. Lindsay Puthoff ripped down three kills as the Redskins won four of the final five points to end the match.

“With the fifth game going to 15 points if you go up two points it’s still anybody’s ball game, but that’s a huge lead,” said Briscoe. “When that happened I called my timeout and we did our thing. We got the ball back and stayed within those two or three points. But, you’ve got to get that turning point at some time and we just couldn’t get that kick in.”

Puthoff fought off the Indians with four kills and a block in the final game, accounting for one third of her teams points. She finished with 17 kills and 10 blocks.

Betsy Hoying had 10 kills to go along with her seven blocks, and Kayla Lefeld finished with nine kills. Lanee Mikesell had 30 assists, Kylie Elking led the defense with 10 digs and Maria Wuebker notched nine digs.

Schwieterman, who was named Midwest Athletic Conference coach of the year, said getting that slim advantage early in the fifth game was the key to winning the match.

“We just stayed alive enough to stay in front of them,” she said. “That helped us out, keeping that lead.

“We needed to get the momentum. I’m not sure if we really captured it, but we never gave it away.”

The Redskins advance to play the No. 3 Marion Local Flyers in district action at New Bremen Tuesday. Marion Local, with MAC player of the year Kelsey Schaefer, advanced with a pair of four-game wins over No. 19 New Bremen and No. 13 Minster.

Fort Recovery had the early momentum against St. Henry, opening the match with back-to-back kills by Gaerke. The Tribe went on a 6-0 run on Holly Stein’s serve, getting an ace and a kill from Stein and kills from Vicki Roessner and Kelly Link as it took a 12-5 lead en route to the win.

But, St. Henry jumped on top in each of the next two games (9-3 in the second and 7-2 in the third) and barely managed to fight off a pair of Indian comebacks.

Gaerke dominated play early in the fourth game as Fort Recovery built leads of 5-1 and 10-2. The Redskins went on a 12-2 run to retake the advantage, but the Indians bounced back to finish off game four on kills by Rammel and Link before falling in the fifth.

Gaerke and Rammel, who were each All-MAC first team selections, led the Tribe with 23 and 15 kills respectively. Gaerke also had 19 blocks, 18 digs and seven points.

Rammel finished with a team-high nine points and eight blocks.

Jennalee Post put up 50 assists and also had nine points. She added 13 digs, six blocks and two kills.

Roessner had 20 digs and eight points, and Rachel Brackman added 27 digs.

FR vs. New Knoxville

Fort Recovery reached the sectional championship match against St. Henry by topping the New Knoxville Rangers, a team it had lost to during the regular season, 18-25, 25-16, 11-25, 25-16, 15-9.

Gaerke finished with 19 kills and 15 blocks in that match, both team highs. She also had 15 digs and two kills.

Post had 48 assists, Brackman picked up 19 digs and Roessner scored 11 points. Rammel added 13 kills, 10 blocks and eight points.[[In-content Ad]]