No. 6 Rangers come back from 2-0 deficit to beat No. 3 Fort Loramie in volleyball action.
Down 2-0, New Knoxville storms back to beat No. 3 Redskins, stay unbeaten
FORT LORAMIE — They lost their first two matches of the season, but they remain unbeaten.
The No. 6 state-ranked New Knoxville Rangers trailed No. 3 Fort Loramie 2-0 in Saturday’s non-conference showdown between a pair of Division IV powerhouses on but the Rangers stormed back thanks to offense from the Henschen sisters, key serving moments and leadership from Ellie Gabel, New Knoxville came away with a 25-19, 26-24, 25-21, 25-21, 15-8 at Fort Loramie High School.
The Rangers (9-0) never trailed in sets 3 and 5 and temporarily lost the lead in the fourth, but a 5-0 run in the third set and a 6-0 run in the fourth set — both with Carsyn Henschen serving — and a 4-0 run with Morgan Leffel at the line in the fifth set helped the Rangers pull away in those games.
The result was a happy coach in the first nerve-wracking match of the season for the Big Red Machine.
“It was a rough start for sure, it looked like we were still on the bus in those first two sets,”
Rangers coach Meg Lageman commented. “But we learned from that and we didn’t give up.
“I told them in the third set that we have nothing to lose, we can step it up, play our game and show them who we are or we can give up. And we didn’t. They fought to the end and they played Ranger volleyball.”
The Rangers played a season minimum 24 sets — winning all of them — before dropping their first set this season on Saturday. But Lageman added that losing the first two sets was, in a way, good for the team because it taught her players a lesson that they need to be ready to play and it showed as the only adjustment the Rangers made in sets
3 through 5 were in serve-receive.
Lageman explained that on serves, they would hide a girl or pull a certain player back to be able to get a pass off but other than that, Lageman said she has six solid girls in the lineup that never come off the court so there were not many adjustments that needed to be made.
“I knew and they knew that this would come someday,” Lageman said. “We play so many good teams that somebody is bound to get us but the important part in overcoming adversity is that we keep our heads up.
“The whole set thing, I told them that it’s awesome, but it doesn’t matter to me. I just want to get that win. That is all I care about.”
Leading 10-8 in the third set, Henschen served five straight points with kills from Avery Henschen and a pair of aces as the Rangers’ lead ballooned to 15-8, but with Ava Grudich serving the Redskins (9-2) came back, pulling within two, 1816. The Rangers led by two points until Grace Rose’s serve was hit out of bounds and a kill hit out gave the Rangers set point when Carsyn Henschen ended the set with an ace.
Leading 7-5 in the fourth set, Henschen served six straight points with three kills from her sister, followed by an ace and a pair of kills from Morgan Leffel to lead 13-6.
The Redskins, however, stormed back again down 15-9 with Jada Dress serving, propelled by Mackenzie Hoelscher produced four kills during that run to give Fort Loramie a 17-15 lead.
A Carsyn Henschen kill eventually tied the game at 18-18 and a block by the 6-foot junior put the score at 20-20, putting the ball in Meslia Waterman’s hands, who served four straight points to give New Knoxville game point when Fort Loramie’s Summer Hoying’s serve hit out of bounds to force set No. 5.
Leading 3-2 in the fifth set, Leffel served four straight points, recording a couple of aces in the process, to push the Rangers’ lead to 7-2 and Henschen took care of the rest by producing three kills as the Rangers eventually completed their comeback.
Lageman got a lot of production out of the Henschen sisters with Avery leading the way with 23 kills, followed by Carsyn’s 18 kills along with 23 digs and a team-high six service aces on 33 serve attempts and just one error. The sisters combined for five blocks.
“Avery and Carsyn did great,” the coach added. “They were the hot hitters today and I told Ellie [Gabel] to continue to set them until somebody can stop them.
“They are a very good duo.”
Before the start of the season, Gabel had never been a setter, but Lageman inserted her there, although she admitted that Gabel was not expected to be in that position when the season began.
But the junior setter collected 49 assists and continued to feed the Rangers hitters with her timely passing for a total of 51 team kills and displayed leadership at moments when the chips were down.
“She is so positive,” Lageman said of Gabel. “She doesn’t care where she’s at. Where I want her is where she’s going to play and she gives it her all.
“She places the ball really well, she is smart and, most importantly, she is a leader. A setter needs to be a leader and she never stops talking to bring the team positive vibes the whole game.”
In other statistics, Leffel produced seven kills and 11 digs, Waterman recorded four aces and 10 digs and Fledderjohann finished with 10 digs.
Saturday’s win marked the fourth victory against a state-ranked opponent this season for the Rangers — and two this week. New Knoxville swept No. 8 ranked Fort Recovery on Thursday. But the Rangers have a rugged week ahead of them with a home game against Anna on Monday and a pair of Midwest Athletic Conference matchups on Tuesday at Minster and home Thursday at Delphos St. John’s.
“It’s fun, it’s definitely fun,” Lageman said when asked if she expected to have such a good start to the season in her first year as head coach. “I’m proud of the girls. I didn’t expect this but it’s everything I wanted and more but we’ve just gotta keep going.
“We can’t settle with where we are, there is always room for improvement because we’ve got to be ready. We’ve got some tough games ahead.”