Fort Recovery advances to final

FORT RECOVERY — The Indians had cruised during their sectional championship match five days earlier.

They appeared to be on their way to another sweep in the district semifinal, but sloppy play early on in the third set let the Lancers stick around for a fourth.

Once energy returned to the Tribe's side of the court, the Lancers couldn't quite keep up.

Fort Recovery High School set up a rematch with a conference opponent by beating the Lincolnview Lancers 25-22, 25-12, 20-25, 25-16 Tuesday in the Division IV Northwest District 5 semifinal it hosted at Fort Site Fieldhouse.

“I knew going in that's the kind of game we were going to get,” said FRHS coach Travis Guggenbiller. “I knew Lincolnview was a fantastic team. I've watched a lot of film within the last five days with this team because they're so talented.

“They're fairly tall, they are quick defensively (and a) good serving team. I'm very proud with how our girls responded. I knew it was going to be a dogfight today.”

Fort Recovery (20-3), ranked fourth in the state and the district's top seed, will seek its first district championship since 1991 on Thursday as it hosts Midwest Athletic Conference rivals Marion Local, which defeated St. Henry 25-14, 25-145, 25-20 later Tuesday night at Fort Site Fieldhouse.

Despite a few bouts of poor play early, Fort Recovery jumped out to a two-set advantage over ninth-ranked and fourth-seeded Lincolnview (20-3).

Two offensive errors from the Indians and a Madison Williams kill gave the Lancers an 11-9 lead in the third set. In all, Lincolnview went on an 8-2 run with kills from Paige Forktamp and Whitley Rammel breaking it up a bit. Those kills, though, came with little energy out of the Indians, much to the chagrin of Guggenbiller.

“We had a couple kills and I remember saying to the girls 'You didn't get excited on it,'” Guggenbiller said. “That's what you cannot have. You have to get excited and show a lot of enthusiasm and be disciplined on the court the whole time.

“They disrupted us. Our serve receive came down a little bit. Our service struggled a little bit and then we were able to find it in the fourth set.”

Still in set three, though, the Indians were able to tie the score at 18 and 20, but the Lancers rattled off five straight points to force set four.

“I think we got too comfortable,” Guggenbiller said of how Lincolnview was able to take a set from the district favorites.

The Lancers grabbed the first two points of the fourth set, but their advantage was short-lived. Whitley Rammel put the Indians on the board with a kill, and then blocked the attack from McKayla Blanemeyer. A Lancer attack error and another Rammel block suddenly put the Tribe out front 4-2 forcing LHS coach JaNahn Evans into calling a timeout. Marissa Gaerke's serve out of the break sailed long before another Rammel kill, a Lancer attack error and consecutive Aubrey Knapke aces put the Indians ahead 8-4.

Lincolnview never got closer than three points the rest of the way.

“(This win) gives some of our girls so much confidence going into Thursday,” Guggenbiller said. “I thought Grace Guggenbiller and Aubrey Knapke played the best game they ever played.

“They were the difference maker early on, and then we were able to get Whitley to wake up a little bit in that fourth set there. That was a big key.”

Rammel notched six kills in the fourth set alone en route to a 18 kills, second only to Fortkamp’s 20. Marissa Gaerke totaled seven kills and Grace Guggenbiller had six kills.

Defensively, Rammel racked up five blocks, and Fortkamp had three. Kierra Wendel and Gaerke had 20 and 16 digs respectively. Aubrey Knapke registered a half dozen aces.

Next up for Fort Recovery is the Marion Local Flyers, the state's seventh-ranked team and district's No. 2 seed. The Indians swept the Flyers at home on Sept. 22 for their regular season match.

But as the adage goes, it's challenging to beat a team more than once in the same season.

“It's hard to beat a team multiple times but we're going to continue to have to do first-ball contact,” Travis Guggenbiller said. “That's where it starts. You've got to serve aggressively, you've got to defend aggressively, have a good serve receive and communicate on the court and stay positive all the time.”