Fort's upset bid falls short

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KALIDA, Ohio — The Indians hadn't taken a set in two matches this season against the Redskins.

They also weren't at full strength either time.

With a healthy roster and the season on the line, the Indians gave the top-ranked team in the state a run for it.

The upset bid came up just short.

Fort Recovery High School's volleyball team had its season end on Thursday with a 25-21, 21-25, 20-25, 25-16, 15-11 loss to the St. Henry Redskins in the Division IV Northwest District championship.

“We were very confident,” said FRHS coach Chelsea Kahlig, whose sixth-ranked Indians end the year 19-6. “We're finally healthy. We have all the girls participating on the court and we had a real good practice (Wednesday) and had our heads straight at what our focus was.

“You have two of the best teams in the state going after it. I'm still glad we competed. I am proud of the way we competed.”

St. Henry (23-2), which is No. 1 in the state, advances to the regional semifinal against second-ranked New Bremen, which defeated fellow Midwest Athletic Conference rival Marion Local in four sets at Bluffton University. The regional tournament begins Oct. 31 at Elida Fieldhouse.

“We knew coming in that Fort was going to give us everything they had.” St. Henry coach Tricia Rosenbeck said. “Beating a team, like they said, three times in the same season is a really hard feat, especially in the MAC. So we knew coming in they were going to give us everything they had.”

Fort Recovery had just taken the previous two sets and jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the fourth thanks to a kill and a block from Paige Fortkamp, but St. Henry responded by rattling off eight consecutive points, including three kills from Hannah Bruns, another kill from Mia Niekamp and a Niekamp block.

The Redskins led by as many as nine, 15-6, but saw the margin cut to six, 19-13. Niekamp then rifled three kills over the next nine points to force the fifth set.

From there, it was grind-it-out, back-and-fort MAC volleyball in a race to 15. Poised to upset the Redskins for the first time in three tries, the Indians got a 7-4 lead in part from three Fortkamp kills as well as a kill and block from Marissa Gaerke.

Fortkamp led the Indians with 16 kills, and Gaerke tallied six.

The Redskins responded by scoring five of the next six points to knot the scoreboard at eight apiece, and it was again tied at nine and 11-all.

St. Henry senior Nora Vaughn smashed a kill to break the tie and the Indians had an attack sail long to make it 13-11, prompting Kahlig to call timeout and regroup the Tribe.

Out of the break, however, Brianna Siefring recorded an ace and Vaughn slammed her fifth kill of the set to secure the Redskins' district title.

“I think my seniors really stepped it up in the end,” said Rosenbeck, whose team had lost in the district final each of the last three years to MAC rivals – Coldwater in 2016 and New Bremen in both '17 and '18. “Nora Vaughn, gave five, was just putting balls down … We just kind of stepped up in our leadership, stepped up in some big moments.”

Kahlig expected the battle, but was hopeful her team could have pulled off the win.

“We came out of the gun firing serving-wise in that third set,” she said“ They did the exact same thing to us in the fourth.

“You have two pretty good serving teams. It was just like, game five we had our opportunities. They were mainly defensive errors. (The Redskins) were in system and our block wasn't up. We got hurt defensively in the fifth set.”