FR rallies to beat host Cardinals (10/23/06)

NEW BREMEN, Ohio - If this pattern continues, every volleyball fan in Fort Recovery will need to visit a cardiologist.

The Indians trailed two-games-to-one for the second straight match, this one with their season on the line. And they missed on three game-point opportunities in games four and five.

But they still managed the comeback victory, their third five-game win in the last four matches, fighting off the host New Bremen Cardinals Saturday 14-25, 25-21, 17-25, 25-23, 17-15 in the first round of tournament play.

After her squad topped New Bremen in three games just nine days earlier, Diana Rammel said she expected a tight rematch and echoed those thoughts after the Indians narrowly survived.

"I knew coming in here that New Bremen was going to be tough," said Rammel, whose team topped St. Henry in five games Oct. 10 and Coldwater in five Tuesday. "I knew they were here to play, and I knew that even looking at our tape from last Thursday night's game wasn't going to do any good. I knew they were going to come to play, and it's a matter of being ready for it. I don't know if the girls knew they were going to be here to play, I don't know, we just didn't play great, but we pulled it out.

"It was just a matter of telling the girls, 'It's now or never. If you guys want to stop now, we can quit, but if you guys want to play some more you better get a move on and you better start playing.' And they did. They didn't want to quit."

Cardinal coach Lisa Thobe was again left to talk about her team playing a great match only to be unable to close out a victory over a top-tier team.

"It's the little stuff," Thobe said. "The big things they do very, very well. We didn't block as well as I probably would have liked to, but we lost (game two) on a ball that just dropped between them. It's that little bit of communication, that getting off the net - a lot of it was transition, not getting where they need to go quick enough ...

"But I'm proud of them - in a week, two weeks time the improvement we made and how much better we played. It was a great match."

Fort Recovery (17-6) eked out the win in heart-pounding fashion, playing side-out volleyball with the Cardinals for the first eight points of the deciding game. New Bremen was the first team to score a point off its own serve, taking a 5-4 lead only to have the Indians push ahead 9-7. The teams then traded points until an attack error by Kate Wente gave the Tribe a 14-11 lead and triple match point.

However, the Cardinals (11-12) pulled even again thanks to a pair of Tribe errors, an ace from Wente and a rare replay after both teams were called for being in the net. Fort Recovery missed a fourth chance to end the match after a Kinsey Wenning kill gave them a 15-14 lead. But Wenning put them ahead again, slamming her 11th kill inside the 10-foot line, and Abby Niekamp and Tiff Gaerke combined for a block to finally secure the win.

Both Niekamp (50 assists) and Gaerke (29 kills, 27 digs, eight blocks) said it seems like it should be easy when all a team needs is one point to win, but it's the hardest one to get.

"It wasn't the best, but after all we went through, we weren't going home today," said Niekamp, one of the team's six seniors. "We weren't going home a loser."

The win was the seventh in a row for Fort Recovery, which was voted 11th in the final Division IV poll of the season. It earned them a rematch with the third-ranked New Knoxville Rangers, who they lost to in five games Sept. 21 after taking a two-games-to-one lead.

The Indians went undefeated in the Midwest Athletic Conference the rest of the way to share second place with the Rangers, and are 10-1 in their last 11 matches with the only loss coming to No. 8 St. Paul.

Gaerke and Niekamp said Fort Recovery feels confident going into the rematch because of the way they played in that regular-season match, which came at a tumultuous time of their senior campaign. It was the Tribe's first match under Rammel after Brad Smith resigned just six matches into his first season and various mixes of four others took the bench for the next four matches.

"You can't take it from the way we played tonight, but we can play outstanding," said Gaerke, who was named MAC Player of the Year earlier in the week. "We're just going to start new and finally play like we know how."

Fort Recovery and New Knoxville will play Tuesday night at New Bremen, following the first sectional championship match between No. 1 Marion Local (18-4) and St. Henry (13-9). The Redskins won the first of Saturday's two semifinal matches, 25-22, 25-15, 22-25, 25-20 over Minster.

"We played (New Knoxville) in five great games, the last game 17-15," said Rammel. "It's just going to be one of those tough matches, long nights again. I'm looking forward to it."

For most of the match against the Cardinals, Fort Recovery looked nothing like the team that was one of the hottest in the state to close the season.

New Bremen dominated the opening game, rolling out to a 19-8 lead en route to the win. The Tribe fought back to take a second game in which neither team scored more than four consecutive points, but the Cardinals pulled within one game of the upset thanks to a late 8-1 run in the third.

The fourth game was another back-and-forth battle, which Fort Recovery finally grabbed control of with a 4-0 run by way of a pair of Gaerke kills and a quick tip by Niekamp. It missed three straight chances to win the game, two on Gaerke attack errors, but the senior finished it on her third try and then combined with Niekamp for the winning block in game five.

"We weren't letting ourselves forget about mistakes like we usually do," said Niekamp. "We were kind of letting those get to us, and then we'd play worse."

Vicki Roessner followed Gaerke in digs with 17, and was also second on the squad with seven points. Lauren Wenning had 10 kills, Brittany Brackman scored eight points, and Rachel Stahl and Joanna Snyder each had six points.

"We came out flat and never really got over that, I don't think," said Rammel. "Even when it ended, my team wasn't there."

The Indians had all kinds of problems with left-hander Jaclyn Dabbelt, who racked up a Cardinal team highs of 17 kills and six blocks. Stephanie Winner and Christine Schwartz each added 12 kills, and Taylor Jones totaled 45 assists.

Michelle Griesdorn had 23 digs, followed by 19 from Jones and 17 apiece by Wente and Maria Elking.

Thobe re-iterated the ridiculous strength of the New Bremen sectional, which will have four of the top 12 teams in Division IV going head-to-head in second-round matches Tuesday night.

"What's sad is everybody kind of downplays it if they aren't here," she said. "They act like it's no big deal. They don't understand the kind of volleyball that goes on. We were the fifth seed, and I think we could have played with any of the teams here. At this point, it could be anybody's ball game. It's really how well you're playing that day."[[In-content Ad]]