Defending champs end FR's season

By CHRIS SCHANZ

The Commercial Review

VAN WERT, Ohio – Not even two weeks ago, the Indians dominated at home.

They served aggressively, played solid defense and made good passes in beating defending state champion Cardinals.

The roles were swapped on Monday. And the champions roll on.

Fort Recovery High School's volleyball team, which is ranked second in the state, had its season come to a close on in the Division IV district semifinal with a 25-20, 25-21, 25-21 setback to Midwest Athletic Conference rival and third-ranked New Bremen Cardinals at Van Wert.

“I feel like it was almost complete opposite two weeks ago,” said FRHS coach Chelsea Kahlig, whose team beat New Bremen 25-14, 25-23, 25-20 on Oct. 9 at Fort Site Fieldhouse. “We stressed all year how important it is to serve aggressive. I give credit to their serve receivers. I think they definitely stepped it up and it challenged us to keep serving aggressive.”

New Bremen (20-4), which won the school's first state championship last year, advances to the district final at 6 p.m. Thursday against No. 1 St. Henry Redskins, who outlasted the fifth-ranked Marion Local Flyers in five sets in the first semifinal earlier Monday.

“Yesterday we had our best practice of the season so I felt good coming into this match,” said New Bremen coach Diana Kramer. “I knew that if we stayed aggressive and stayed confident we had a chance to pull off in some people's eyes an upset.

“But we expected to win. We expect to win every game that we play this year.”

Fort Recovery (20-4) led 14-12 in the opening set only to have New Bremen rattle off seven straight points.

The Indians grabbed the next three points as Madi Rammel notched a kill to halt the run, and Cassidy Martin followed with a block and kill of her own.

Martin shared the game high of 10 kills, while Rammel contributed a pair of kills to go with her 24 assists.

The 19-17 deficit is as close as the Indians got the rest of the set.

Appearing to get out of the first-set funk, Fort Recovery jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the first set – Brooke Gaerke and Martin each had a block and a kill – before New Bremen began to claw its way back to tie the set at 11-apiece.

The Tribe was out front 15-11 but wasn't able to create much more cushion.

Instead, the Cardinals chipped away to even the score at 22 apiece prior to Rachel Kremer giving NBHS a lead it never relinquished.

The Cardinals tallied five of their dozen aces in the middle set.

“It starts with our serve,” Kramer said. “We were hitting our zone, we were going after it and being aggressive. We missed some serves on some key plays but we responded.”

Fort Recovery's defense, which was crucial when the teams met the first time this season, struggled to handle the New Bremen serve in the third set, often making bad passes to Rammel which put the offense out of sync.

“In the end when you get aced 12 times against a good team it's going to be tough to recover,” Kahlig said.

The tournament experience of New Bremen's seven upperclassmen as well as a handful of sophomores was just too much for Fort Recovery.

“They played better,” Kahlig said of the Cardinals. “Starting the game I was pretty confident. I think the girls were pretty confident. You hope after beating a team in three sets not that long ago, you hope in the back of their mind they know that's not going to be the same team on the court.

“You have to earn it all over again.”

Monday was the final match for Hannah Knapke, Gaerke, Martin and Rammel in a FRHS uniform. In their four years, they helped turn Fort Recovery from a team that often finished near the bottom of the MAC standings to a team that was a win away from a conference championship and won the most matches (seven) against conference rivals in more than a decade.

“These senirs have given us so much in their four years,” Kahlig said. “It wasn't pretty when they first started out. All four of them, it was just really neat. All four of them started and played a critical role in this program.”