Tribe's season ends in semifinal

KALIDA, Ohio — Beating a team for a second time in a season is a tall task.
It’s even more difficult when trying to dig out of early deficits.
The Fort Recovery High School volleyball team rallied once, but couldn’t repeat the feat as its season came to a close Wednesday with a 21-25, 25-12, 25-23, 25-16 to the St. Henry Redskins in the Division III district semifinal at Kalida.
“I think we went into that game confident we just didn’t have the pieces,” said FRHS coach Chelsea Rogers, whose team was seeded third and ended the year at 16-9, its first winning season in more than a decade.
“We were missing the serve receive,” Rogers added. “We couldn’t find our hitters. There were too many pieces that just didn’t come together.”
It was a testament to the changes by the Redskins, who were seeded second and finished 12th in the final Division III state poll.
“We made some adjustments on their blocking taking more line on their outsides,” said St. Henry coach Tricia Rosenbeck, whose team advances to face top-seeded and second-ranked Coldwater in the district final Saturday afternoon. The Cavaliers swept Parkway earlier in the evening Wednesday.
“I think it’s just playing together and being more confident in themselves,” Rosenbeck said. “We served them very aggressive. They were out of their system a lot. I think we got them rattled some times.”
That strong serve was most prevalent in the second set, as St. Henry (16-8) scored the first nine points. Danielle Lange had a pair of kills and a block, Olivia Niekamp notched another kill and the Indians had five offensive errors. St. Henry later had two runs of four consecutive points for an 18-6 lead, and Fort Recovery wasn’t able to rally.
Tied at one set apiece, the Indians — who defeated the Redskins in four sets at Fort Site Fieldhouse on Sept. 8 — had a 13-8 advantage in set three before St. Henry slowly started to chip away at the deficit.
Addy Vaughn, Ashley Siefring and Niekamp each had kills, and Julia Holdheide ripped off three consecutive aces to tie the match at 15-all. Siefring notched two more kills around a block from Olivia Clune and Niekamp to make it 18-15 Redskins.
Siefring and Niekamp finished with 10 kills apiece.
“They are a different team than we played earlier in the year,” said Rogers, whose team lost to the Redskins in the district semifinal last season as well.
St. Henry’s hot start to sets continued in the fourth, as it rattled off 13-straight points for a lopsided 14-1 advantage, all with Holdheide at the service line. She had four aces in the set and finished with seven.
Also during the run, Fort Recovery got called twice for being out of rotation and had three attack errors.
“We got off to some bad starts,” Rogers said. “We had a lot of errors. They didn’t have to work a whole lot.”
Fort Recovery showed a little bit of life late in the fourth set, going on a 6-1 run to cut its deficit to 18-11. Carley Stone started the run with one of her match-high 14 kills, and Brooke Gaerke had a kill as well. Then Stone notched back-to-back aces before another Gaerke kill.
But, the Tribe couldn’t repeat its 10-0 run from the first set that helped erase an eight-point deficit.
“I don’t even know if it comes across their mind that, ‘Hey, that could happen in those other sets,’” said Rogers, who used both of her timeouts in the first 15 points of the final set. “Using timeouts quickly and not being able to adjust things hurts you.”
In the opening set, Fort Recovery trailed 19-11 before sophomore Cassidy Martin registered a kill. That gave the ball to classmate Hannah Knapke, who served the next nine points that included two aces, two Stone kills and two huge Kiah Wendel digs on one point.
Clune ended the run with one kill to make it 21-20 FRHS before Stone tallied another kill, St. Henry had an attack sail long and Gaerke recorded a block. Devin Post, one of three seniors, finished off the only set the Indians won.
“We are going to miss their leadership but they left a mark on the season,” Rogers said of Carly Link, Audra Metzger and Post. “Having the first winning season in a decade and second sectional championship, they have a lot to be proud of.
“We are a young team. It’s not an excuse. It’s a fact, that next year we’re going to have a lot of those girls back. It was a fun year.”