Bullying the Bulldogs

ARCANUM, Ohio — The Indians elected to not take a bye, but rather play an opening round game.

Strong serving, good defense and a balanced attack helped them roll through the Bulldogs. Next, they will look to take the momentum from the opening win into the match with the Panthers.

The third-seeded Fort Recovery High School volleyball team took control early in the OHSAA Division VI Southwest 2 Sectional opener for a 25-11, 25-11, 25-12 sweep of the No. 8 seed Yellow Springs Bulldogs on Wednesday.

The victory earned the Indians (10-13) the opportunity to face the seventh-seeded Twin Valley South Panthers in Saturday’s sectional final at 10 a.m. hosted by Arcanum.

“It’s always nice getting that first tournament win,” said FRHS coach Travis Guggenbiller. “We chose not to have the bye just to get that start right away. Our girls just need that confidence and knowing they can do good in the tournament. So, I’m proud of us today. I thought it was a good win for us.”

The win comes after a rough stretch for Fort Recovery, as it dropped seven of the final eight regular season matches. Outside of surrendering the first two points on a pair of errors to the Bulldogs (9-13), the Indians took immediate control and never looked back.

Of the 34 points the Tribe gave up, only 11 came from Yellow Springs kills, two aces and a block. The other 20 points (58.8%) came from errors on the Indians.

“I think maybe we weren’t putting enough mustard on the ball,” said YSHS coach Phil Renfro. “I think a lot of times, if you’re not hitting the ball hard enough it makes it easier to defend. Anytime we got a decent swing on it, they kinda struggled to keep it in front of the three-meter line. … But, their defense is strong and they knew where the ball was going a lot of times. … Kudos to their front row. They do a lot of good action out of the middle. I think that’s their strong suit.”

As part of the defensive effort, the Indians blocked three shots – Brynn Willmann had two.

Supporting a strong defensive effort, the Indians got a balanced offensive attack. Setter Kayla Heitkamp effectively distributed the ball around during the match, helping four players get six or more kills.

“She’s just smart with her decision making,” Guggenbiller said. “Those things can go unnoticed and aren’t always on the stats.”

“She’s always telling us exactly what to do, where to hit, everything,” Kennedy Muhlenkamp said.

The senior, along with her sister Cameron Muhlenkamp, led FRHS with nine kills. Bridget Homan and Karlie Niekamp followed with six apiece. Heitkamp put four balls away herself and Willmann added three kills.

“We knew they weren’t going to be as strong of a team, so we just had to attack at our level,” Kennedy Muhlenkamp said. “We feel like we did that today.”

The Indians also notched 11 aces in the match. Heitkamp and Kenna Dues led with three each. Two of Dues’ aces came during the first set, as Fort Recovery strung together four points to start and pull away. Heitkamp also had two serves find the floor during a key stretch that saw the Indians’ lead grow from 19-8 to 24-8 in the third set.

“We’ve been putting about 25% of our practices into serving lately, because I’ve been telling the girls, ‘If you can take control of the serve and then the serve receive, you’re going to win a lot of games this year. It starts right there,’” Guggenbiller said. “I thought they did exactly what (we) needed and they hit the zones that I wanted.”

In all three sets, FRHS found a way to string at least seven points together early to take control. 

The first set featured eight straight points to build a 15-4 advantage on three various Yellow Springs errors, a Willmann block, a Homan ace and kills from Willmann, Cameron Muhlenkamp and Kennedy Muhlenkamp.

In the second set, the Indians scored eight consecutive times with an ace from Dues, two kills from Kennedy Muhlenkamp and Willmann and a trio of Bulldog hitting errors to go up 11-2.

The Indians only strung seven kills three more YSHS errors, an ace by Cameron Muhlenkamp and kills from Homan, Niekamp and Kennedy Muhlenkamp to take control at 10-1.

FRHS will look to capture the momentum from Wednesday night as it takes on the 10-12 Panthers in the sectional final Saturday morning.

“We’re definitely going to use this game as motivation for the next game,” Kennedy Muhlenkamp said. “We just need to bring the same energy.”