Tribe serves Ansonia a loss

ANSONIA, Ohio — The Indians have come out with offensive intensity this season. On nights when they face unranked opponents, the balanced attack can take control of teams quickly.

The Tigers found that out quickly Monday.

The Division III No. 10 Fort Recovery High School volleyball team spoiled senior night for the Ansonia Tigers by making quick work of them 25-12, 25-17, 25-16.

“It was a good game,” FRHS coach Travis Guggenbiller said. “We played aggressively, we played at a high level and we played at our level. Everything was going our way today.”

The Indians (15-5) took advantage in the first set while the Tigers played their seven seniors and left underclassmen out of the rotation. Fort Recovery attacked the seniors playing outside of their usual rotation, tallying eight aces in the first set.

Kensey Gaerke of FRHS serves a ball in the Indians' three-set sweep of the Ansonia Tigers on Monday. Gaerke was a perfect 3-for-3 on serves and had two digs as well. (The Commercial Review/Andrew Balko)

 

Early in the set, Kennedy Muhlenkamp got three aces in a row by serving toward hitter Addie Marker when she was on the back row.

“It’s always hard to pass the ball in zone one,” Guggenbiller said. “Not knowing a whole lot about (Ansonia) going into it we just went aggressively at zone one so the ball has to come across the setter’s body.

“In the (Midwest Athletic Conference) it starts with first ball control so we wanted to pass well out of our serve receive and we wanted to serve aggressively.”

Six Indians recorded aces in the match with five of them notching two or more. Muhlenkamp finished with a team-high six aces while Teigan Fortkamp was the next highest with three.

Fort Recovery’s offense also prevailed in the kills statistic. Fortkamp, Saige Leuthold and Mara Pearson powered the Indians to 37 kills. Pearson and Fortkamp both had 10, but Leuthold wasn’t far behind with eight.

Fortkamp leads Fort Recovery with 256 kills this year and Pearson has established herself as the clear No. 2 hitter with 162. They are four-year varsity players while Leuthold’s production has been a more recent development. She now has 44 kills over the last four matches.

“I’m very proud of our senior Saige (Leuthold) and where she’s came from her freshman year,” Guggenbiller said. “She is one of the most improved players I’ve had the ability to coach.”

Leuthold had two stand-out kills.

In the second set, right after the Tigers (9-13) ended a four-point run, Muhlenkamp set a ball in the middle of the net for Leuthold. Aleah Shilt jumped at the net to contest the attack, but Leuthold swung hard to send the ball screaming past her and between Alyssa Schmitmeyer and Gabby Leeper to land behind the back row for the point.

Another memorable kill came late in the third set when Kayla Heitkamp set a ball to the right side of the net for Leuthold. With a running start, she attacked the ball to send it between Olivia Schmitmeyer and Abby Kramer attempting to block and into Maddie Buckingham’s head. The ball ricocheted off of Buckingham beyond the playable area to give the Indians the point.

“Sets were very consistent,” Leuthold said. “We worked a lot on it in practice and I think that carried over into today.

“We started to run slide balls and those worked very well.”

Marker had a strong night for the Tigers, blocking three of the Indians’ attacks and partnering with Shilt on one of them. Maddie Buckingham also added a block that bounced back behind Fort Recovery’s hitter.

Despite having more blocks (Ansonia had four blocks to the Indians’ one), it wasn’t enough to slow down the strong hitters of Fort Recovery.

“Our net work was good, they were really moving up at night, and that helped our back row,” Ansonia coach Lydia Schlarman said. “We're not used to seeing these types of hits in our conference, so it's definitely something to adjust to.”

Even though the teams weren’t evenly matched, both coaches walked away happy with the intensity and energy. Ansonia stepped up to the challenge of a ranked opponent while Fort Recovery didn’t play down but came out trying to put the match away out the gate.

The Indians close the regular season with a pair of MAC opponents in New Knoxville and New Bremen before they begin postseason play Oct. 18. After losing to Division IV No. 1 Fort Loramie over the weekend, Guggenbiller was happy to get a win to start off the week.

“It’s always nice to going in with another win,” Guggenbiller said. “It’s another MAC game against New Knoxville and you can’t count them out, you know it’s going to be aggressive. 

“It’s going to be a two-game MAC week, so starting off Monday with a win going into (New Knoxville) and then we go in Thursday with another one,” he said.