Bulldogs advance; Riders fall in four

BLUFFTON - Celina bounced back from a sluggish start and St. Marys was unable to get into a rhythm.

The Bulldogs advanced to the Division II district championship match for a second straight season by sweeping Defiance 25-22, 25-17, 25-15 in Tuesday's semifinal at the Sommer Center on the campus of Bluffton University.

Celina will not have a chance to have a district final rematch with the Roughriders, however, after Shawnee came back after losing the first set to take a 20-25, 25-23, 25-22, 25-21 win in the nightcap.

The district title game will be Thursday at 6 p.m. with the winner advancing to the Ontario regional. The Bulldogs won the regular season league meeting between the two in three sets at Lappin Gymnasium.

Celina 3, Defiance 0

Defiance had the advantage early as Kali Leatherman had five straight service points to put her squad in front 6-1. Celina, which did not take a timeout during the stretch, began to chip away. Cora Lutz served up two points to make it 9-7 and then Hailey Langenkamp served up an ace to tie the set at 10-10. A three-point run by Alex Stambaugh put Defiance back into the lead at 14-10, but Celina chipped away. Finally, with Paige Duncan serving, a Lutz kill tied the set at 17-all and then a Defiance hitting error gave Celina its first lead of the set at 18-17. The teams were tied up again at 18- and 19-all before a Duncan kill made it 20-19, followed by a stuff block by Alyssa Hoyng to make it 21-19. Defiance was unable to even the set again as a Hoyng kill closed out the set.

"I think initially, our serve receive was the culprit," Celina coach Amy Sutter. "We cleaned that up by mid-first set. After that, we were pretty solid."

Celina quickly used the built-up momentum to jump out to a 6-1 lead in the next set. Defiance came back to tie the set at 6-6, but Celina regained control. Hannah Rasawehr served up four straight points to push the Celina lead to 15-9 and the defense limited Defiance to one-serve rotations on six of their final seven rotations.

The third set had the appearance of a rout early. Paige Sutter served up six straight points to help Celina take a 10-1 lead. Defiance came back and put pressure on Celina. Sam Stambaugh tallied five straight service points to cut Celina's lead to 13-10. Langenkamp put the match away for Celina with a six-point run, including two aces, to make it 22-12. A Lutz kill closed out the victory.

"We got out to such a great start and then we let our foot off the game a bit," Sutter said. "We had some coverage errors and were hitting the ball out of bounds a lot."

Hoyng had 15 kills to lead Celina. Paige Sutter had 18 assists and Langenkamp recorded 23 digs.

Morgan Porter led Defiance with 15 kills.
Shawnee 3, St. Marys 1

After Taryn Swander put St. Marys up 12-1 thanks to a nine-point service run, Roughrider fans had to think a sweep would in in the offing.

Shawnee chose to disregard that thought and came back in the first set to give St. Marys a battle, with the Roughriders holding on for the five-point win despite of the furious comeback.

"We weren't fully out of system," St. Marys coach Andy Rammel said. "We were just enough out of system that we couldn't get going."

Shawnee started to take over in the second set, going up 13-7 on a Olivia Brock five-point service run. The Roughriders were down 23-17 but battled back to cut the deficit to 24-23. However, Shawnee's Norah Painter recorded her fifth kill of the match to even the match at one set apiece.

The third set was back and fourth until a three-point run by Brock put the Indians up 18-13. Later, Shawnee was up 21-15 before Shania Taylor served up four straight points to get St. Marys to within one point at 21-20. Later, St. Marys was down 23-22 but could not rally after a Painter kill and a Roughrider hitting error.

"We just couldn't get going," Rammel said. "When we got going, we were able to put some runs together, but it seemed like when we were able to do that, it was very late in sets."

The start of the fourth set had an appearance that Shawnee had sapped all of St. Marys' energy. Amanda Medsker served up 10 straight points to make the score 19-4 Indians and forced Rammel to use both his allotted timeouts.

But all of a sudden, St. Marys began to claw its way back. Quincy Rable served up five straight points to make it 20-11. Later with Shawnee up 23-13, Madi Howell served up five striaght points.Several points came on Ally Angstmann kills to pare the Shawnee lead down to 23-13. Painter, who finished with 24 kills, got the Indians to match point, but Angstmann hit another ace. A rotation violation on Shawnee and an Agnstmann kill cut it to 24-21 before a long spike out of bounds closed out the match.

"They refused to give up," Rammel said of his team in that final set. "Lot of credit to Shawnee."

Angstman, who went over the 1,000-career kill mark during the match, led St. Marys with 15 kills to go with four aces and 21 digs. Taylor had 32 digs and Howell had 30 assists.