Panthers knock out Fort

VAN WERT, Ohio — The Indians got off to a hot start Saturday in their effort to defend their sectional championship. But the run didn’t last very long.
After scoring the first four points of its Division III sectional championship match at Van Wert, the Fort Recovery High School volleyball team gave up six in a row to the Parkway Panthers and never found a groove in a 25-12, 25-13, 25-18 defeat.
Coach Diana Rammel said she saw some carry-over from the Tribe’s opening-round tournament match against Fairview. It also struggled to find a rhythm in that match, but were still able to knock off the Apaches (6-17) in three games.
That was not the case against Parkway, which is now 18-5.
“I think if you come out sluggish, sometimes if things don’t go your way you can’t come out of that sluggishness, especially against a good team like Parkway,” Rammel said. “They’re a fantastic team. You can’t make mistakes.”
Parkway erased the Indians’ 4-0 lead with six kills on the strength of their own efforts, but 13 of its final 19 points in the opening game came on FRHS miscues. The Panthers proceeded to take an 8-0 lead on the way to dominating the second game, and then stepped in front 12-5 in the third.
Rammel went heavily to her bench in that third game, and the Tribe pulled to within 13-10. But Parkway pushed the advantage back out to eight points on the way to finishing the sweep.
“We had a pretty poor start,” said Parkway coach Jeff Marbaugh. “But to our credit, we didn’t lose any kind of confidence and came back and ran off six straight. I think that basically just got us feeling ready to go.”
Emily Crowell led the Panthers, who advance to the district tournament at Napoleon, with 15 service points and six kills. Bailey King finished with seven kills, and Haley Roehm, Haley Burtch and Kelsey Bates each added five.
And while Parkway spread out its attack, Marbaugh said he was especially happy with his squad’s serving.
“Our hope today (was), through our serving, trying to serve pretty aggressively and serve to spots that we wanted to serve, to hopefully not let their hitters get on track. They have a couple of nice hitters, and you don’t want to let them get in a groove.”
Fort Recovery was limited to just 14 kills in the match, including six each from Holly Brunswick and Olivia Thien. Holly Brunswick also had nine digs and five service points.
Abby Backs finished with 11 digs, and Shelby Brunswick put up 10 assists.[[In-content Ad]]