FR overcomes early struggles

FORT RECOVERY — The Indians might have had a case of the Mondays against the Jets.

Take away the four net violations in the first set and the Jets might not have had a chance against the host Indians.

Fort Recovery High School’s volleyball team overcame a poor performance in the opener to stave off the Franklin Monroe Jets, 23-25, 25-15, 25-10, 25-19 Monday at Fort Site Fieldhouse.

“It was just staying positive and working through those difficulties,” FRHS coach Travis Guggenbiller said how the Tribe (7-0) worked through some of the mental mistakes to start the night. “We know our strengths — we’re a good hitting team, we’re a good passing team (and) we have strong serves.

“It starts with the aggressive serves. We have to get them out of system then we have to execute. We have to be disciplined on the attack. I think it all started with the serve, that was the No. 1 change in the first set from the last three.”

Once the opening set was out of the way, the Indians again scored the first four points of the second on their way to a 5-0 lead. The Jets strung together four consecutive points before the Tribe started to pull away with six more of its own.

The Jets trimmed the deficit again, this time to 12-9. A Paige Fortkamp kill started a stretch of four consecutive points for the Indians, who never had their lead dip below five points the rest of the set.

That serving Guggenbiller referenced was most prevalent in the third set, but it took a while for it to get going. Franklin Monroe (5-1) led 8-6 before Fortkamp tapped one of her 20 kills around a pair of Jet blockers. She then went back to the line and served three more points, giving the Indians a 10-8 advantage.

A Fortkamp attack error made it 10-9, but the Jets put the ensuing serve into the net. That sent Aubrey Knapke to the service line and she didn’t give it up for 13 more points.

Fort Recovery closed the third set on a 19-2 run, including 14 straight points.

“Aubrey Knapke did an excellent job today going back there and serving,” Guggenbiller said. Knapke only missed two of her 23 serves and registered five aces. “She’s been struggling a little bit today, and today she made them work for every single point. The points that were not aces, they were out of system so she did a good job of making them work off her serve.”

Whitley Rammel and Marissa Gaerke both finished with 13 kills to complement Fortkamp, and Rammel also had four blocks.

On Saturday at home against the Liberty-Benton Eagles, the Tribe got pushed to the brink of their first loss of the season but forced a fifth set and kept the winning streak going with a 25-17, 22-25, 20-25, 25-18 15-8 victory.

Rammel paced the Indians with a whopping 31 kills offensively to go with her 11 blocks on defense. Fortkamp added 16 kills and Gaerke finished with eight kills. Kierra Wendel’s 10 digs were tops on the team, and Hope Wendel recorded 26 assists while also going 24-of-26 from the service stripe.

Junior varsity

Mara Pearson led the Indians with five kills in a 25-22, 25-8 win over Franklin Monroe.

Grace Klingshirn was second with four kills, Abby Knapke added three kills and Allysen Fullenkamp had two kills.

Tiegen Fortkamp contributed nine aces and nine assists.

Against Liberty Benton, the Indians won 25-18, 25-23.

Klingshirn posted a team-best nine kills, and Pearson chipped in eight kills. Audra Bubp and Pearson had seven digs apiece.