Flawless Fort

Copyright 2018, The Commercial Review

All Rights Reserved

FORT RECOVERY – A conference championship and a perfect record against non-league opponents are among the many goals the Tribe sets before the season.

The former can be accomplished later this week.

The latter was achieved on Monday.

Fort Recovery High School's volleyball team was stronger in every aspect of the game on Monday in sweeping the Ansonia Tigers, 25-7, 25-11, 25-7 at Fort Site Fieldhouse.

“They realize it's a big week but I think we've preached all year long we're going to take it one game at a time,” said FRHS coach Chelsea Kahlig, whose team improves to 18-2 on the year and beat every non-Midwest Athletic Conference team on its schedule. It's only losses are to Marion Local and a non-conference tilt against St. Henry.

“We're actually really good at taking it one play at a time,” Kahlig added.

The match began with Fort Recovery, which is ranked third in Division IV, getting the first three points before an attack error and an ace brought Ansonia (3-15) within one point.

The Tribe scored the next eight points, including four consecutive Chloe Showalter aces, to make it 11-3.

“She had a point in the season she knew her serve kind of got softer,” Kahlig said of Showalter, a sophomore who shared the match high of four aces with senior teammate Hannah Knapke. “That's been her goal is to get her back on track and she's done that. She had a great serving night the last two games. Not only just aces, but she's serving a lot of points for us. I usually give credit to our servers for those because they're usually disrupting them which is causing us to be able to get the point.”

An attack error gave Ansonia the serve back before Cassidy Martin recorded a kill and a block to kick off a six-point FR swing.

Martin led all players with 12 kills and finished with two blocks. Paige Fortkamp was second on the team with eight kills, and Madi Rammel was third with five. Olivia Patch, Whitley Rammel and Brooke Gaerke each had four kills.

A service error to open the second set began another six-point streak. Ansonia's Kassy Wentworth fired a kill, Fort Recovery's attack sailed long and a Chelsea Noggler ace made it 6-3.

Wentworth's kill and Noggler's ace were just two of the four points the Tigers earned by themselves. The other 21 points came off Fort Recovery errors, whether on the attack or at the service line.

“We had a few service errors and we know that's going to happen when we serve as aggressive as we are,” Kahlig said. “We definitely had more aces than errors. As long as that proportion is right we're OK with those serving errors.”

The third set saw the Indians open a 10-1 lead after surrendering the second point. The third of four service errors by the Tribe and an Ansonia ace made it 10-3 before Madi Rammel (five kills, 28 assists) had a kill to begin another 10-1 FRHS run.

After concluding its non-MAC schedule, the Tribe completes the final week of the season at home against Division IV No. 2 New Bremen on Tuesday and Versailles on Thursday. The Indians are 6-1 in MAC play and with wins on both days they can claim at least a share of the conference title for the first time in nearly three decades.

“We have been pretty humble about the season that they're having.” Kahlig said. “We've never brought up where we are in the rankings, we just focus on what's at hand and what the task is in front of us.”



Junior varsity

Marissa Gaerke led Fort Recovery in both kills and digs during a 25-17, 25-5 victory over the Tigers.

Gaerke finished with nine kills and six digs. Grace Guggenbiller was second with four kills to go with her team-high nine aces while Mariah Hartings and Melissa Laux had two kills each.

Hope Wendel set up the offense to the tune of 19 assists.