Indians tame Mustangs

ST. HENRY, Ohio — Paige Fortkamp recorded 16 kills for the University of St. Francis’ volleyball team in a 25-32, 24-26, 22-25, 25-19, 15-11 loss to Grace College on Wednesday.

Her younger sister, Teigan, also had 16 kills, but she powered her team to victory.

Fortkamp propelled the third-seeded Fort Recovery High School volleyball team to a 25-11, 25-12, 25-9 victory over the seventh-seeded Allen East Mustangs in the sectional championship Wednesday night at St. Henry to earn a trip to the district tournament.

With the win, the Indians move on to play Division III No. 3 St. Henry, which is seeded second, at 7:15 p.m. Monday at Kalida.

“It was a good game today,” FRHS coach Travis Guggenbiller said. “It was nice to see them apply what we did in practice this week. We focused a lot on our hitting, transitioning and serving, and that’s what we did today so it’s nice to see.”

Fort Recovery’s leading attacker played well all throughout the match, but really caught her stride in the third set, when Fortkamp had seven kills, two aces and six service points.

Fortkamp switched up her attacks as she overpowered defenders nine times, placed the ball perfectly to drop four times and had three tip kills.

“Teigan is one of our go-to girls,” Travis Guggenbiller said. “You kind of live and die off of your go-to girls.

“She’s been doing something we’ve talked about in practice, which is making good shot choices. I can think of six different types of attacks that she had today. And that's what you want to see from your hitters being able to change your shot, because defensively makes it harder to defend.”

Along with leading the attack, Fortkamp played well on the back row and behind the service line. During three of Fort Recovery’s five runs of six or more points, she was playing on the back row, supporting the team defensively.

Behind the service line, Fortkamp led the Indians (17-6) with three aces while going 17-for-17. Even on her serves that didn’t result in an ace, she kept the Mustangs (18-6) out of system, including two times where the serve didn’t result in an ace, but Allen East was so far out of system that they didn’t get the ball back over the net.

Fortkamp echoed Travis Guggenbiller’s sentiment about how the focus on serving in practice led to the win.

“We've been focusing on serving a lot, so I think that has really shown in this game for sure,” Fortkamp said. “Using our serves to disrupt their offense was something we worked on in practice and again I think that really showed in this game.”

The Tribe dominated the first and third sets, jumping out to 12-4 leads in both and never relinquishing them. The second set wasn’t quite as smooth.

Saige Leuthold had a kill to open the set, and Allen East followed with five straight hitting errors, pushing AEHS coach Laura Basham to call a timeout.

“I told them to take a deep breath and to focus on playing their game,” Basham said. “Just slow it down, play their game the way they normally play it and come back and just breathe and have a good time.”

The message worked as the Mustangs immediately responded with Savana Brooks getting a kill off of a blocker. Eventually, Allen East battled back from the 6-0 deficit to cut it to only one point at 11-10.

Tides once again turned on them as a center-line violation on Joy Helser set off what became an eight-point run for Fort Recovery. The Indians finished the set on a 14-2 run, featuring four aces — two from both Kayla Heitkamp and Mara Pearson.

“The big thing that we just kept reminding them today is that we need to forget about whoever is on the other side of the net,” Travis Guggenbiller said. “We need to do a better job of just focusing on us and on one ball at a time. … I said, ‘Girls, we're talking about this one ball. We don't care about that 25th point right now because we have to get the 11th, the 12th and the 13th.’”

Allen East’s Brooks and Soraya Jackson led the Mustangs with five kills apiece.

Pearson, Paige Guggenbiller and Kennedy Muhlenkamp matched that number. Leuthold and Karlie Neikamp followed the trio with three kills, which tied Neikamp’s season-high.

Travis Guggenbiller was specifically impressed with his outside hitters, Muhlenkamp and Paige Guggenbiller, and how they helped balance the attack and have grown throughout the season at the position.

“Our back-row players yelling out where to hit definitely helped,” Paige Guggenbiller said. “If it’s open and we keep the set in front of us, the attack will be good.”

Cali Wendel led the defensive effort on the back row with 10 digs.

Heitkamp led the offense on Wednesday as she amassed 16 assists. Muhlenkamp added 14.

When they met in the regular season on Sept. 29, the Indians lost 25-15, 25-12, 26-24 to St. Henry.

Travis Guggenbiller just wants his players to keep the same in-the-moment focus that has helped them find success this far in the season as they head into the rematch.

“Today was a great game,” Travis Guggenbiller said. “We'll go out in practice and just take care of ourselves and worry about Monday when Monday comes.”