Wildcats shut down 'Riders

ST. MARYS - For the second time in four days, the Minster Wildcats volleyball team hit the road to tangle with a Western Buckeye League foe.

And for the second time in four days, head coach Cami Garman's girls returned home triumphant.

The Wildcats tackled the St. Marys Roughriders last evening at Murotech Gymnasium and notched a 31-29, 25-14, and 25-20 victory.

"We seem as if we are finally starting to find our groove," Garman said, whose squad defeated Celina in four sets on Saturday. "We have been practicing hard, and the girls have been pushing themselves to improve. We have done a great job in the past couple of games of building our confidence and working well as a team, so it will be very important to keep that going."

The Wildcats opened the first set against Monica VanderHorst's Roughriders and held no more than a two point advantage, only to have an unreturned tip by St. Marys sophomore Ally Angstmann and a pivotal block by her sister Erika, who finished the match with a game-high 18 kills, give the home team an 11-10 edge. With the younger Angstmann and junior Natalie Kuenning behind the server's line, St. Marys fluffed their cushion to four points at 15-11, but the Wildcats knotted things up a few minutes later at 16-16 thanks to a St. Marys hitting error.

Neither team held more than a two-point lead as the contest rolled into extra points. With things even at 29 points, Minster's Hannah Schmitmeyer served up the final two points of the game for the 31-29 victory.

"St. Marys really pushed us hard in game one from the very start and kept it up all the way through," Garman said. "We fell behind, but our girls did a good job of making adjustments especially when we had a few untimely errors in game-point situations. We pushed through those parts of the game and that mental toughness is what ended up winning it for us."

Game two began and was just as competitive as the opener until Minster senior libero Cassie Jutte served up four straight points to extend her team's lead to 12-8 at the midway point. The Wildcats methodically buried St. Marys the remainder of the way and rolled to the 25-14 victory, which put them up 2-0.

"The first game was a great battle back and forth, but then we came out in the second game and just couldn't get anything started," explained VanderHorst. "We didn't get a lot of solid attacks in the second game and that is something you need to have if you expect to win."

Mimicking the theme of the first two games, the two squads went toe-to-toe at the onset of the third game before remarkable attacking by Minster's Erica Oldiges and Lauren Roetgerman (who combined for 20 kills in the contest) gave their team the permanent advantage at 13-8. St. Marys refused to fold easily, and although they pulled to within a point on several occasions throughout the rest of the game, Minster kept them at bay and took the decisive third game, 25-20.

"Tonight was one of the first games where I really felt that our attackers all really took it to the opponent," Garman said. "Hannah (Schmitmeyer) was swinging hard and the middle hitters – Erica Oldiges and Lauren Roetgerman – did a great job of continually pounding the ball."

Both teams are back in action Thursday. Minster (7-4) hosts the New Knoxville Rangers in Midwest Athletic Conference action and the Roughriders (6-5) entertain the Elida Bulldogs in a WBL tilt.