Wednesday, September 4th, 2019
Nothing personal
Kramer's Cardinals beat Broering's 'Riders in a contest between former coach and player
By Colin Foster
Photo by Dan Melograna/The Daily Standard
New Bremen's Taylor Paul (6) spikes the ball against St. Marys' Carly Caywood (1) and Leah Walter (22) in the third set Tuesday at Murotech Court in St. Marys.
ST. MARYS - As a senior in high school, setter Madison Broering had 33 service aces and won MAC Player of the Year honors for Diana Kramer's St. Henry squad during a run to the Division III state championship game.
Four years later, Broering is now in her first year as coach of St. Marys. Kramer has since turned New Bremen into a yearly state-title contender.
When their teams met on Tuesday in St. Marys, Broering and Kramer did a little catching up.
"Diana was an amazing coach when I had her, and I always aspired to be like her," said Broering after the game. "It was an honor to have her as a coach. Tonight, it was fun to compete with her team but also hard to go up against someone who was your coach at one point in time."
"We kind of reminisced before the game about her turning into a setter and her having a triple-double in the state semifinal and her just being a really good player," Kramer added. "But mostly everything we talked about before the match was all personal."
What Kramer's team did against St. Marys was nothing personal.
Taylor Paul nearly reached a quarter of Broering's 2015 ace total - tallying eight of them to go along with 41 service points and seven kills in leading New Bremen to a 25-5, 20-25, 25-7, 25-6 victory in a friendly Auglaize County rivalry game.
New Bremen had 15 team aces as it improved to 6-0 on the season. St. Marys fell to 2-6.
Paul went behind the service line with her team leading 5-3 in set one and nearly served out the set. Paul racked up five aces as part of a 16-point service run and Macy Puthoff added four kills in the 25-5 win.
The Cardinals didn't look the same in the second set, though. The Roughriders had a little something to do with that.
Leah Walter had a nice service run to put St. Marys in front 5-0. Claire Bertke added an ace and a block, Samantha Ackroyd later followed with a six-point service run that gave St. Marys a 16-5 lead. New Bremen closed the gap to 23-18, and Paul stepped behind the service line. Puthoff had a block and kill on the next two sequences, but then Paul served into the net. St. Marys locked up a 25-20 victory when Puthoff committed an attack error.
"I'm proud of my team for the way they responded after that first set," Broering said. "I tried to tell them that they're a team they can definitely compete with. It's just a matter of them believing that in their minds. I'm glad that my team could come out with that kind of mindset in that second set.
"Truly, it's just a matter of how we start sets," she added. "If we can start out strong with energy and in-system passes, then we can have success."
New Bremen returned to dominance in sets three and four.
Paul collected a handful of points during a service run that put New Bremen up 12-2. Diana Heitkamp later served up a handful of set-closing points, with a kill by Josie Reinhart officially ending it, 25-7.
Reinhart had two aces as part of a four-point service run to begin set four. Elli Roetgerman and Puthoff added aces and Paul had her eighth ace during another long service streak as New Bremen finished off St. Marys in four, 25-6.
"I think that we played really well tonight overall," Kramer said. "I think we served well. I think we attacked really well offensively. We passed pretty well. Unfortunately, it's a game of mistakes and in the second set, we made too many mistakes. But I never thought we were going to lose that set, though.
"I can sit here and say we played bad, which we did," she added. "But credit St. Marys. They served aggressive. They played with a lot of energy. They hung on and beat us. Kudos to St. Marys. But kudos to my team also for refocusing, coming back and taking it to them the last two sets."
Puthoff posted game-highs with 13 kills and eight blocks for Bremen. Josie Reinhart added seven kills, 10 digs and three aces, Roetgerman had five kills and two aces, Pape totaled three kills, 37 assists and five blocks with Heitkamp contributing 11 digs and a pair of aces.
Ackroyd had team-bests with five kills and two aces for St. Marys. Bertke added four kills, Cherissa Priddy had 12 digs with Abbie Young dishing out nine assists.
St. Marys returns to Western Buckeye League play on Thursday, hosting Van Wert.
Kramer will face off against another one of her former player-turned-coaches on Thursday, visiting Kenzie Bruggeman and the defending Division III state champion Versailles Tigers.
Photo by Dan Melograna/The Daily Standard
St. Marys' Carly Caywood (1) gets a kill in the first set against New Bremen Tuesday at Murotech Court in St. Marys.
Photo by Dan Melograna/The Daily Standard
On Tuesday night at Murotech Court in St. Marys, New Bremen coach Diana Kramer, pictured, defeated the team of her former St. Henry player, Madison Broering. That wasn't the only athletic accomplishment by a Kramer on the night, however. After the game, the New Bremen coach was more pleased to learn that her son, Michael Kramer, scored five goals in his youth soccer game.
Photo by Dan Melograna/The Daily Standard
On Tuesday night at Murotech Court in St. Marys, New Bremen coach Diana Kramer defeated the team of her former St. Henry player, Madison Broering, pictured.
