Roughriders win over Bulldogs

CELINA - St. Marys coach Monica VanderHorst knew her volleyball team was going to be in for a battle against across-the-lake and Western Buckeye League rival Celina.

Trailing two sets to one, the Roughriders rallied to force a fifth set and then came out of Celina Intermediate School with a 25-19, 16-25, 22-25, 25-23 and 15-9 win to remain undefeated in WBL play at 5-0 and 10-5 overall. The loss drops Celina to 5-10 and 3-2 in league play.

"I'm proud of my kids to battle back in this gym," VanderHorst said. "To come from behind like that, you have to play, you have to pass and keep your serves inbounds."

The first two sets saw the teams trade hot starts. St. Marys jumped out to an 8-1 lead as sisters Erika and Ally Angstmann took turns sharing the kills.

Celina returned the favor in the second set as St. Marys struggled with its passing. The Bulldogs led 5-0 as Camryn Dzendzel and Megan Imwalle had big kills early.

"How we should be playing was how we played in the second set," Celina coach Amy Sutter said. "We looked as good as we looked all year. We're capable of looking like that all the time. If we'd been able to maintain that through the fifth set, the outcome would have been different.

"Our servers did a nice job keeping them out of their system. We made sure we weren't serving to either of the Angstmanns because they're good passers."

The third set was back-and-forth with neither team holding much more than a two-point lead. Celina's Monica Ebbing served up three straight points to make it 20-16. The Roughriders managed to get it back to within two before Imwalle recorded the winning point.

The Bulldogs looked ready to win the match in four, leading 5-1 at the start of the fourth set as Paige Sutter had a pair of aces. Natalie Kuenning served the Roughriders back into the set with three straight points to make it 5-5. Later, Erika Angstmann served up four straight points to put the Roughriders in front 12-8. Celina got the deficit back down to one point at 17-16, but the Roughriders held tough to send the game to the fifth set.

"Their confidence built back up at the end," Sutter said of St. Marys. "(Erika Angstmann) got a couple of good kills in and it changed the momentum."

An errant spike put Celina up 1-0 right off the bat, but Erika Angstmann quickly spiked down two kills to put St. Marys in front. Sutter served up three points to put Celina up 5-3 before Erika Angstmann recorded a kill for the side-out. Shania Taylor served up three straight points to make it 7-5. Celina cut the deficit to 7-6 on Dzendzel's kill, but that would be all the closer the Bulldogs would be the rest of the way. Rachel Meier had a pair of aces to make it 13-7, Cortney Voisard's kill made the score 14-8 and after Celina scored its final point, Ally Angstmann got the match-ending kill.

"It's a team effort. Everybody has to play their part," VanderHorst said. "If we do that, we're going to win.

"We can't have any hiccups. We have to play all the way through. We have to be mentally strong. That's definitely something we have to work on, but I'm proud to come out of this gym with a win in five."

Erika Angstmann led St. Marys with 27 kills. Ally Angstmann added 19 kills and 23 digs and Kuenning had 41 assists.

Dzendzel had 13 kills for Celina with Imwalle tallying 11 and Trish Dennis and Cora Lutz recording 10 each. Sutter had 50 assists and Alexis Zacharias recorded 27 digs.

Both teams play at invitationals in Van Wert County on Saturday. St. Marys plays in the Van Wert Invitational and Celina travels to Convoy for the Lady Knights Invitational and will play host Crestview in the opening round.