No. 6 Indians sweep top-ranked Cardinals
FORT RECOVERY — New Bremen fell in three sets to Fort Recovery, 19-25, 21-25, 16-25, Thursday night in Midwest Athletic Conference play.
It’s the second straight loss for the Cardinals after starting the season 19-1.
“Fort Recovery outplayed us again. They quite frankly just wanted it more than us,” said Cardinals coach Diana Kramer. “I think that we wanted to win but we didn’t show that in our actions. We changed our lineup a little bit tonight and individual players played good at individual times, the problem with us right now moving forward is finding a way to play as a unit and find a way to win again.”
The Cardinals (19-3, 7-2 MAC) jumped out to a lead early with Diana Heitkamp serving back-to-back aces to go up 5-2.
New Bremen held their biggest lead of the set at 14-9 following an Olivia Heitkamp kill.
From there, it was all Indians. They tied the match at 15 after a Marissa Gaerke kill and held strong with their serves, going up 20-17 and making New Bremen call a timeout.
Fort Recovery (18-3, 8-1 MAC) won the next two points following the timeout and ultimately won the set after New Bremen hit the ball out to the right.
In the second set, New Bremen again held the early lead, going up by as many two a couple different times.
Behind Hope Wendel’s serves, the Indians rattled off five straight points to go up 11-9.
After falling behind at 15-18, Kramer used a timeout and the momentum was reset.
After dropping the first point following the timeout, the Cardinals won four points in a row to tie the game at 19.
The Indians won six of the next eight points behind some well struck kills and timely blocks and won the set.
The third set started as well as New Bremen could have hoped, winning the first five points with Josie Reinhart and Kaylee Freund each recording a kill and Claire Pape tacking on an ace.
Fort Recovery responded with a run of their own, eventually tying the game at 7-7.
At 10 all, they rattled off five straight points, going up 15-10 and didn’t look back, ending the match on a 10-6 run and securing the win.
“It’s a big win just because you’re going up against a team that’s been to state the last three years and they’ve got a lot of seniors back from the previous year,” said Fort Recovery coach Travis Guggenbiller. “It’s always been a competitive game year after year. Diana’s a fantastic coach; obviously one of the best even in the state. Being able to defeat a team with a coach that I’ve looked up to, I just think it’s nice to see that.”
Following the match, Kramer gave credit to Fort Recovery and told her girls what they need to do to get back on track.
Kudos to Fort Recovery. They did a great job. The Fortkamp girl and the Rammel girl were really, really good tonight,” she said. “We have to forget about what’s happened in the past and move forward. Growth isn’t linear. You can’t continue to show growth. Sometimes you take two steps forward and one step back. Now our goal is to continue taking steps forward and I’m confident with us that we’re going to find a way to do that.”
Reinhart led the Cardinals with 11 kills and Olivia Heitkamp added six. Diana Heitkamp led the way with 13 digs and Claire Pape notched 17 assists.
New Bremen will look to make another state tournament run this year, beginning on next Thursday, when they will play the winner of Ridgemont-Upper Scioto Valley.