Rangers’ offense ties up Minster’s defense in MAC contest.
MINSTER — EEF. Energy, effort and focus.
Whenever New Knoxville was missing any of these three ingredients that coach Meg Lageman demands out of her girls she reminds them of those three words; energy, effort and focus.
And when her squad had all three going, they can’t be beaten. Just ask Minster.
The Wildcats opened each set by slamming the ball right back at the Rangers hitters’ faces but once the Rangers had the effort, energy and focus, they turned the tide in each set with their disruptive serving, leading New Knoxville to a 25-19, 25-17. 25-15 victory on Tuesday.
Trailing 11-10 in the first set, Ellie Gabel used a 5-0 run, including an ace, to give the Rangers (11-0, 4-0 MAC) the lead. A pair of runs with Morgan Leffel (5-0 run) and Avery Henschen (6-0 run) serving turned around a second set that saw Minster (74, 2-2) lead 12-9 and a 7-0 run in the third set with Carsyn Henschen serving catapulted the Rangers, once down 11-7, to a 14-12 lead and eventually an 18-4 advantage to end the game.
“All I ask from my girls every day in practice and every game is energy, effort and focus, that’s my three things,” Lageman said. “They didn’t quite have it, they didn’t have a good start. I called a few timeouts and it was like I repeated myself a lot tonight, but they eventually overcame that and they started to step up their game.
“I told them it takes all six not three or four players — all of them have to have that energy.”
The Wildcats came out blocking at the net in the opening set with two blocks by Alyssa Niemeyer and another one by Ella Mescher to keep the Rangers close 9-7.
Mescher then served four straight points — three aces and a kill by Brynn Oldiges to take an 11-9 lead and force the Rangers to call a timeout.
Following a Henschen kill, Gabel served five straight points to regain the lead 12-11 thanks to a Henschen tip at the net, followed by an ace for the junior setter and another kill for Henschen as the Rangers pushed their lead to 15-11.
From there, Minster drew no closer than within three points after Jayden Clune’s block took the serve away from Gabel but New Knoxville eventually extended the lead to 2215.
Minster used a 3-0 run with Ivy Wolf serving to pull within three
22-19, but Carsyn Henschen finished the set at the serving line with an ace and a kill that landed out of bounds for the first-set victory.
“Normally, we are a great passing team, that is what we pride ourselves on,” Wildcats coach Cami Garman said. “Tonight we left a lot of passes up at the 10-foot line and we struggled to attack at full speed. We were leaving so many balls at the 10foot line that our setter was setting everything at the 10-foot line. Even when we got a decent pass we weren’t able to square up and attack the way we wanted to.”
Minster jumped out to a 9-5 lead in the second set, but the Rangers stuck around thanks to kills from Leffel, Henschen and Avery Henschen. Another Leffel kill gave the senior the serve as she used it for a 5-0 run to turn a 12-9 deficit into a 14-12 lead.
During that run, Melisa Waterman and Gabel both produced kills and Leffel picked up a pair of aces. After losing the serve, Waterman got it right back with a kill to allow Henschen to serve six straight points to push New Knoxville’s lead from 15-14 to 21-14 late in the second set.
Minster regained serve on a two-hit violation for the Rangers, but Waterman’s attack gave it back to her team as the Wildcats struggled to generate offense to end the second set with a 25-17 Rangers’ win.
“Attacking-wise we couldn’t find any rhythm and we had to go outside, couldn’t get our middles going and they were able to set up defensively on us when they know what we’re attacking,” Garman added.
The Wildcats enjoyed their largest lead of the match in set 3, 11-6, thanks to blocks from Oldiges and Wolf and kills from Niemeyer, Oldiges and Dana Prenger.
“I give Minster credit, they worked hard against us and they were ready to play when we weren’t,” Lageman added.
Following a Rangers’ timeout, New Knoxville rebounded.
Carsyn Henschen’s attack gave her the serve down 11-7 as the 6-foot junior served seven points to lead 14-7. Leffel produced a kill, Gabel and Avery Henschen teamed up for a block, Henschen lightly tossed the ball back to the middle of a vacant Minster defense and Carsyn Henschen’s thunderous kill was all a part of the onslaught the Rangers’ offense put on the Wildcats in that third set.
“Serving is huge and being able to keep them out of system,” Lageman said. “You should win the game if you keep a team out of system and that’s what they did. I thought our serving was good tonight, we didn’t have a lot of errors and we stayed aggressive, which is important.”
“They definitely pushed us serving-wise and I thought defensively we were super timid,” Garman added. “We were not moving like we normally do on defense so when we were getting those second, third or fourth opportunity balls on those long volleys we weren’t able to attack.
“I just felt like we kind of were back against the wall all night fighting with ourselves and New Knoxville is a consistent team, they don’t make a ton of errors and they just kept attacking at us.”
Leffel took the serve with the Rangers lead 1613 as she served three straight points with help from Haley Fledderjohann and Henschen with their kills and blocks to extend the lead to 19-13. Avery Henschen then took over after an exchange of points to serve the set to match points with her kill as well as attacks from Fledderjohann and Carsyn Henschen.
Henschen produced a team-high 14 kills to go along with her three service aces, followed by her sister Avery with nine kills and Waterman with six kills. And feeding those attackers was Gabel, who finished the evening with 36 assists. The Rangers finished with eight service aces on the night.
“Last night against Elida we had a five-set game and we felt that our blocking lacked a lot last night,”
Garman said. “New Knoxville brought a lot of the same kind of attacking that Elida did with us so coming into tonight I challenged our blockers to pick it up and I thought they did a good job with that.
“We did a better job sealing the net and honing in on their star attackers by getting some nice touches and slowing the ball down.”
Leading the way for Minster was Wolf with nine kills and 13 digs. Niemeyer and Oldiges each produced four kills. Oldiges also had four blocks as well as Mescher and Clune finished with 17 assists.
New Knoxville also won the junior varsity match in three sets on Tuesday.
The Rangers will host Delphos St. John’s on Thursday while the Wildcats will travel Thursday to Maria Stein to take on No. 2-ranked Marion Local, who was swept by Fort Recovery on Tuesday.
“Last night we went five sets, it was a late night and it wasn’t the way I wanted to start the week that we have ahead of us,” Garman said. “You can’t worry about the last point, you gotta focus on the point that you are playing right there, you get mad about the error and you get competitive. I feel like we focus so much on the last point and then we lose three or four points.
“I think we’ll match up well with Marion and you’re playing a MAC team there is always an extra level of competition. We’re prepared for every night it is just a matter of if we can consistently keep that momentum.”