Cardinals outlast Tigers in five sets

NEW BREMEN - Thursday's Midwest Athletic Conference Volleyball Match of the Week featured defending Division IV state champion New Bremen verses defending Division III state champion Versailles.

By Match of the Week standards, it lived up to the billing.

It took them five sets to do it, but the defending co-MAC champion Cardinals protected home court by rallying from a two sets to one deficit to clip the Tigers 3-2 (23-25, 25-15, 22-25, 25-15, 15-7) at The Nest.

"There was a lot of hype surrounding this," New Bremen coach Diana Kramer said. "This was a great environment to play in. Our crowd, our town has been behind us from the start this year. They saw two really good teams play some pretty good volleyball tonight."

The Cardinals (7-0, 2-0 MAC) extended their winning streak to 27 matches dating back to last year, with their last loss coming at Fort Recovery on Sept. 14, 2017. They've only dropped nine sets during the streak. The Tigers fell to 5-4 and 1-1 in MAC play.

The first set featured 11 ties and five lead changes. Neither team led by more than three through the first 20 points. The Tigers had set point at 24-21 when they committed a net violation and a hitting error on consecutive sequences. Emma George would slam the door on the Cardinals' comeback bid with a spike for a 25-23 victory.

Versailles led 4-1 in the second set, but New Bremen followed with a 15-2 run. Macy Puthoff accounted for five points during the run (four kills, one block), Josie Reinhart tallied a kill and an ace on back-to-back sequences and Abbi Thieman was behind the service line for most of it. The Tigers never got closer than four points the rest of the set.

"It was just a lack of execution right from the beginning because you look at it, I think it was 13-6," Versailles coach Kenzie Bruggeman said. "They just got on too big of runs and we didn't have people stepping up and putting the ball away."

But Versailles staked claim on a 12-8 lead in the third set, thanks in part to three kills by Raegen Shaffer. The Cards came back to regain the lead with a 5-0 run, taking a 14-13 edge on a clean ace by Rachel Kremer. However, Versailles made a push late with a couple of blocks by Lindsey Winner breaking a 21-all tie. Liz Ording had the clinching kill in a set that featured 11 ties and six lead changes.

The fourth set only had three ties and one lead change. The Cardinals took their first lead at 4-3 and never trailed again in the set or the match.

"We had really, really good moments, and I'm very proud of those moments," Bruggeman said. "I'm not so proud of the way we stepped up to pressure situations."

In the closer, Reinhart put Bremen on the board first with a spike. Kremer followed with an ace and then Versailles had a hitting error. Claire Pape and Puthoff added kills, Madison Pape dropped home an ace and the Tigers committed a handful of hitting errors that helped the Cardinal cause.

"It's a game of mistakes," Kramer said. "The winning team usually responds to their mistakes the best. We had a lot of mistakes in the first set. Credit to Versailles because Versailles is very solid - one of the best teams in our league and they have a chance to make it back to state this year. … But we responded. We missed 13 serves in the first four sets. In the fifth set, we didn't miss any serves and we had four or five aces. I'm proud of how we responded."

Reinhart finished with 11 kills and four aces for the Cards. Puthoff totaled eight kills and eight digs, Taylor Paul tallied 10 kills, Thieman dished out 20 assists and Blake Snider had a team-best 10 digs.

"Every single person on our team did something well tonight and that leads to a win," Kramer said. "Somebody different steps up every night. Tonight it was Josie's turn. She led us in some statistical categories. Macy was solid. Rachel was solid. Everybody was solid. Everybody's going to make their mistakes, but what makes this team so tough is after a girl hits a ball out of bounds, they are looking at their setter on the next play and they're saying 'Set me the ball. I'm ready,' and our setters have confidence in them."

New Bremen travels to Lincolnview on Tuesday night.