Redskins find a way to win against Knights

MILLBURY - The St. Henry volleyball team has 26 victories after Wednesday.

Now the Redskins have three more wins to get if they hope to claim Ohio's ultimate prize.

The top-ranked Redskins survived a drama-filled, five-set battle with Bishop Ready in Wednesday's Division III regional semifinal at Lake High School.

The two teams traded wins in the opening four sets (St. Henry won the first, 25-22, and third, 25-12; Ready won two and four 25-14 and 25-17) and then the Redskins came through in the clutch by finishing the deciding fifth set on an 11-2 run for a 15-8 victory.

It wasn't perfect by any means, but the Redskins found a way to win like they've done all season and secured a spot in Saturday's regional final where they will meet defending state champion Huron at 2 p.m.

"It's a great team victory. Our backs were against the wall many, many, many times and we just found a way," St. Henry coach Diana Kramer said. "Things didn't go as well as we wanted them to tonight. But in the end, we found a way to win, and that's all that matters." 

St. Henry had trailed 6-4 in the fifth set after a 3-0 run by the Silver Knights. But the Redskins had one final run in them. Olivia Niekamp three of her team-high 16 kills in the final nine-point run and Claudia Heitkamp added a kill and an ace during the run as St. Henry stayed unbeaten at 26-0.

"It's just a game of momentum. When one team has it, it's just so hard to grab that momentum back," Kramer said. "But before that fifth game, everyone looked each other in the eye and said 'We're going to find a way.' "

The Redskins led wire-to-wire in the opener. They tried pulling away, gaining a 17-11 edge after Heitkamp and Niekamp each batted down their third kills of the set on consecutive sequences. Bishop Ready fought back to reduce the deficit to 18-16 and then St. Henry reeled off the next four points, courtesy of a Niekamp kill, a Britney Siefring block and a Katie Gerlach ace, to take a 22-16 lead. Once more, the Silver Knights cut the advantage to two, but the Red and White took advantage of a service error and MAC Player of the Year Madison Broering ended the set with a kill.

The wheels fell off for St. Henry midway through the second set. Bishop Ready (14-13) had a little something to do with that. In system and in control, Holly Guggenbiller and Danielle Lancia were in attack mode at the net as the Silver Knights used a 13-3 scoring spree to emerge a 25-14 winner.

In set three, the wheels were back on and rolling for the Redskins, who charged out to an 11-1 lead. Ellie Stammen had two kills and an ace during the stretch. Heitkamp and Savannah Wourms scored two kills each and Broering added a kill and a block. The Knights had the score down to 12-6 at one point, but that was the closest it got. Niekamp got in the mix down the stretch, with three kills in the final 12 points. Heitkamp put the finishing touches on a 25-12 win with an ace.

In what was a seesaw battle in stanza four, Ready took over with a 7-2 run after the score had been 12-all. St. Henry cut the lead to three at 19-16, but the Knights finished it out with a 6-1 run, aided by several St. Henry hitting errors, and forced the winner-take-all fifth set.

"All week we've heard from people, 'Oh, they have 12 losses,' " Kramer said. "The truth is, they have played an extremely tough schedule. Their losses are to high-quality opponents, and they played great volleyball all year. We knew going in we were going to have to stay focused and stay determined and it was going to be a long night for us."

Ready's Holley Guggenbiller tied Niekamp for a match-high in kills with 16. St. Henry's Heitkamp and Stammen shared honors for second in kills with 12 apiece. Broering had 46 assists and three kills, Gerlach had a team-best 26 digs and four aces and Katherine Davis added 23 digs.

The Redskins will play to earn their first state berth since 2011 when they return to Lake on Saturday. They'll be facing a Huron team that defeated Otsego in four sets during Wednesday's nightcap.

"We're very confident going forward," Kramer said. "We know if things don't go well, we can still find a way. We learned from tonight. I think tonight woke us up and relit a fire underneath us. We're going to use it going forward."