Tribe streaks by Patriots

FORT RECOVERY — The Patriots had a tough time limiting point streaks.
When they were able to get the offense rolling, the Tribe block was seemingly always in position.
Fort Recovery High School’s volleyball team used long point streaks, timely blocks and scrappy defense to overcome a tough first-set loss to defeat the Jay County Patriots in four sets Tuesday, 23-25, 25-8, 25-12, 25-13 at Fort Site Fieldhouse.
“That was a big win,” said Carley Stone, a FRHS junior who led the team with eight kills and 18 digs while adding four of the Tribe’s 21 blocks.
“It just felt really good to come out and play like that,” Stone said.
The Patriots, meanwhile, had their five-match winning streak come to a close after back-to-back losses to Madison-Grant and Delta to open the season.
“In every aspect of the game we did not play super well tonight and they played real well,” said Fred Medler, the Patriot coach.
Jay County (5-3) and Fort Recovery (2-0) went toe-to-toe in the first set, with neither team leading by more than four points.
The visiting Patriots were up 24-20 and fought off a late rally by the Indians to take that set 25-23.
During the break, FRHS coach Chelsea Rogers reiterated to her team what has been their mantra all offseason.
One match — and one set — at a time.
Jay County had difficulty keeping up from then on.
The Indians came out firing in the second set, opening on a four-point run thanks to back-to-back kills from Kiah Wendel and Cassy Martin. Wendel served the Tribe to four straight points — she had a team-high six aces — and Madi Rammel did the same moments later. Stone then served a 10-0 run to give Fort Recovery a commanding 20-3 lead. During those runs, the Patriots were whistled for a couple net violations, had their offense commit a few errors and had a few of Stone’s serves drop in for aces.
“They got on a roll in game two and we just couldn’t shut the momentum down that they had,” Medler said. Fort Recovery won that set 25-8, with only five of the Patriots’ points earned. “It was serve reception. It was our setter being out of position. It was our hitters being out of position. Our defense was out of position.”
Point streaks helped the Indians overcome an early deficit to take a 7-5 lead, then a 13-6 advantage in the third set. Fort Recovery closed on a 10-1 run, and ran off streaks of six- and nine-straight points during the fourth set.
“We talked about that with our teams, the runs that teams get,” Medler said. “They had way too many runs of more than four points … We couldn’t get them shut down.
“To their credit, they are better than us right now.”
On the few occasions Jay County completed passes to teammates to set up an offense, Fort Recovery’s defense made things miserable. Sophomore Brooke Gaerke and Stone notched consecutive blocks during Rammel’s 5-0 run of serves in the third set, and Stone later came up with some crucial digs to continue rallies and her own serve.
“When our block was there it was really strong,” said Stone.
Gaerke tallied a game-high seven blocks, two on JCHS senior Abby Barcus, who finished with a team-high seven kills after missing Monday’s match against Randolph Southern to recover from having her wisdom teeth removed.
“Brooke Gaerke got up,” Stone said, praising the youngster. “She was on fire tonight. That was good. That is all you can ask for; strong block up there.”

Junior varsity
Fort Recovery dropped the first set 25-11 but rebounded with back-to-back wins to defeat Jay County, 11-25, 25-21, 25-16.
Randi Ferguson led Jay County (5-3) with six kills. She also had five digs and one ace.
Hanna Dillon contributed four kills and three digs, with Hallie Fields recording three kills to go with her five digs. Maggie Pryor had a team-high nine digs, and Allison Jobe totaled 12 assists.
Fort Recovery stats were not available.