Fort falters vs. Cardinals (10/10/03)

FORT RECOVERY — When you have a chance to bury a Midwest Athletic Conference team, do it. If you don’t, it’ll more than likely come back to bite you.

The Fort Recovery volleyball team learned that lesson all too well Thursday in a 1-15, 18-16, 15-9 loss as the New Bremen Cardinals spoiled Senior Night.

“The girls need to show up every game,” said Fort Recovery coach Jackie Kaup. “They didn’t tonight.”

After a bit of a slow start, the Indians (13-7, 4-4 MAC) dominated the first game. Kaup brought in her full compliment of senior substitutes midway through the game and the Tribe rolled to the 15-1 victory, scoring eight straight points on Jennalee Post’s serve.

The second game was closer early, but the Tribe still led 13-9 after four straight points served by Lindsay Gaerke with the starting lineup returning to the floor. Then everything fell apart.

The teams traded seven consecutive side outs, three of which Fort Recovery gave away on attack errors. The Cardinals finally took advantage when sophomore middle hitter Liz Schnelle came to life.

Schnelle came up with two mammoth kills as New Bremen went on a four-point run to even the game. The Indians took leads of 15-14, and 16-15, but still could not put the match away.

The Cardinals (13-8, 5-3 MAC) simply kept fighting back and eventually won on a tip by Kelly Steineman.

“Once we got going we were OK,” said New Bremen coach Lisa Thobe. “We came off a bad loss to Marion (Local) and it continued in the first game here.

“Then they got fired up. I think 90 percent of it was they just got their heads into the game.”

Fort Recovery dozed off in the final game, only to wake up and try to rally as it trailed 13-1. New Bremen never scored more than three points in a row in the deciding game, but just kept methodically putting numbers on the board as they took advantage of Tribe miscues.

The Indians’ made a valiant comeback effort, but the deficit was simply too much to overcome as they fell 15-9 in the final game.

The Tribe had eight service errors in the final two games as New Bremen took the match.

“It was mental,” said Kaup. “We made mental errors. Mental mistakes killed us, and we started to play too late.”

Thobe’s crew also looked like a different team in the final two games, playing much better defense and looking to Schnelle when they needed a big kill. Fort Recovery simply had no answer for her as she finished with a match-high nine kills to go along with three blocks.

“She’s young, and if she struggles at the beginning it takes her a while,” said Thobe. “Once she started going they couldn’t stop her. She just jumps over the block.”

Schnelle was aided by 11 assists from Ashley Egbert. Casey Hamilton had nine digs, Kelly Steineman recorded four blocks and Kristen Luedeke notched a pair of aces.

Joscie Kaup and Briget Metzger again paced the Tribe. Kaup had 22 assists, 11 digs and six kills, and Metzger racked up 18 blocks and eight kills.

Post scored 12 points, Renee Schmackers had seven, and Julie Grube added 10 digs.

Fort Recovery will have a chance to rebuild some momentum as it visits Elida Tuesday and Coldwater Thursday, both at 6 p.m., before heading to sectional play at New Bremen Saturday.

Junior varsity

The Indian junior varsity team had no problem against New Bremen, stomping the Cardinals in a 15-6, 15-4 win.

Jackie Wenning racked up most of her match-high eight points in a long game-one run, and Vicki Roessner finished with seven points, including a match-ending ace. Kristen Schwieterman and Julie Link also had seven points apiece.

Julie Link finished with four kills, and Kelly Link added three. Ciera Rammel had seven assists, Kelly Link had five blocks, and Schwieterman and Wenning each picked up five digs.[[In-content Ad]]