Bulldogs shock Titans

CELINA - You could see in the eyes of the Celina volleyball team that they badly wanted to win.

The Bulldogs overcame an 0-2 deficit to win the final three sets and upset state-ranked Ottawa-Glandorf 22-25, 23-25, 25-10, 25-19, 15-13 in a battle of Western Buckeye League unbeatens on Thursday night at the Intermediate School.

"They wanted it," Celina coach Amy Sutter said of her team's determination as they improved to 5-6 and 3-0 in the WBL. "We had a team dinner. We talked about motivation and this being our shot. They came through tonight."

The Titans, ranked second in this week's Division II coaches' poll, entered 10-0 on the season. The teams played a hard-fought opening set featuring 11 ties and six lead changes before O-G won 25-22.

Ottawa (now 10-1, 3-1 WBL) won the second set 25-23, but fans could sense the momentum was slowly tilting towards the Bulldogs. After being down 16-6 early in the second set, Celina scored 15 of the next 20 points to tie the set at 21-all. The Titans came away with the win on Jordan Alt's third kill of the set, but the Bulldogs did not appear to be in despair at the break, nor when the Titans took a 3-0 lead to start the third set.

After McKenna Black gave Celina its first point at 3-1, Paige Sutter began her serving run. After a kill and block by Alyssa Hoyng tied the set, six straight Titan hitting errors put Celina in front 8-3. The service runs continued as Paige Duncan and Cora Lutz each had three service points. Paige Sutter then wrapped up the set with four straight points to get Celina back into contention.

"Our serving was on fire and our blocking was phenomenal," coach Sutter said. "Our blockers did a great job of slowing down the ball to allow them to pick it up.

"(O-G) had a lot of hitting errors, but we kept them out of system, which was a positive. They weren't able to run much, and they're great hitters."

"I'm not even sure how many hitting errors," Titans coach Ann Ellerbrock said. "Very uncharacteristic. The momentum shifted, and then we played a little bit afraid, a little timid."

The same formula used by Celina in the third set continued to pay dividends in the fourth as the Bulldogs led 9-4 early thanks to kills by Lutz, Black, Hoyng and Hannah Rasawehr. The Titans regained their composure and later cut down Celina's lead to 21-18, but Rasawehr and Hoyng had big kills down the stretch to even the match at two sets each.

The Titans won the serve to start the fifth set and scored the first point, but Hoyng tallied a kill and gave Celina the serve. Paige Sutter quickly went to work on the serve to put Celina in front as Hoyng had back-to-back blocks and Black made a save to keep the ball in play. The ball dropped untouched on the O-G side and Celina went up 6-1 before the Titans got the serve back.

Katie Bellman took the serve and quickly put the Titans back into the lead. Hitting errors by Celina and blocks by O-G's Carly Alt and Kylie White forced coach Sutter to use both her timeouts as O-G took a 7-6 lead. Celina tied up the set quickly and added another tie at 8-8 before Ottawa went up 12-9 with the serve and just three points away from winning the match.

"We're a team that tenses up," coach Sutter said. "When we played stressed, we (don't exactly) let up, but play and make uncharacteristic errors."

Celina refused to back down, even with the Titans up 13-10. Rasawehr scored a kill to give her team the serve. Hailey Langenkamp went back to serve and tallied an ace to make it 13-12. After O-G used its last timeout, Hoyng scored a kill to tie the set. A Titan hitting error put Celina at match point and another hitting error ended the match before the Celina players stormed the court.

"They took charge. They did all the talking in the huddle," coach Sutter said. "At one point, I didn't even have to do any motivating. They were doing it all themselves. They were fired up and wanting this game."

"Give all the credit to Celina," Ellerbrock said. "They came to win and came to play hard. We have no excuses how we played. Hopefully this makes us go back to the gym and work harder."

Hoyng finished with 15 kills. Lutz added 13 kills and Black and Paige Duncan had 10 and six kills each.

The Bulldogs return to action next Tuesday at Lehman before hosting Defiance in WBL play next Thursday.