Monday, November 16th, 2015
Redskins fall to Lancers in classic battle
Division III State Volleyball Championship Match
By Gary R. Rasberry
Photo by Mark Pummell/The Daily Standard
St. Henry's Ellie Stammen holds up the Division III state runners-up trophy after the Redskins lost to Gilmour Academy in five sets in Saturday's championship match.
FAIRBORN - As St. Henry and Gilmour Academy each found out, it would be difficult to put the other team away in the Division III state volleyball championship match at the Nutter Center.
The Redskins easily won the first set, but the Lancers started out strong in the second set before having to fend off a late St. Henry run. After Gilmour won the third set, St. Henry won the fourth to set up a fifth and final set.
The Lancers jumped out early in the final set and St. Henry was unable to recover in falling 25-13, 20-25, 22-25, 25-15, 7-15 and denying the Redskins an eighth state title in school history.
Gilmour (26-3), the state runner-up last season, wins its first state volleyball title. St. Henry ends the season 28-1 and brings home the silver for the fourth time in school history.
"It was back and forth, back and forth," St. Henry coach Diana Kramer said "I could not be prouder of this group of girls."
The heavily pro-Redskin crowd had plenty to cheer about in the the first set as St. Henry jumped out to a 5-1 lead thanks to back-to-back aces from Ellie Stammen. St. Henry worked its lead into double digits at 16-6. Gilmour was only able to close the gap to seven points before St. Henry pulled away to take a lead.
Just when things looked the Redskins' way, the Lancers struck back with a vengeance. Attack errors by the Redskins were mixed in with kills from Ohio State-bound Alexa Turk, Megan Brzozowski and Katie Forsythe, which put the Lancers in front 7-1. Then with the score 12-3, Kramer used her second timeout to settle down her charges.
But just when it looked like the Lancers would put the game away with ease with a 23-9 lead, the Redskins strived to tally. After St. Henry got the serve back, Madison Broering served up four straight points to cut the Gilmour lead to 23-15. A kill by six-foot sophomore Ella Grbac, daughter to former Michigan and NFL quarterback Elvis Grbac, gave the Lancers set point at 24-15, but the Redskins got the sideout and Claudia Heitkamp served up four straight points, three coming on kills by Britney Siefring, to make it 24-20. Forsythe finally gave the Lancers the final point they needed to level the match 1-1.
"It brought us some momentum for the next game," Broering said. "No matter the score, we're going to keep trying to fight."
"That's the game of volleyball," Kramer said of the difference of the first two sets. "Drives me and everybody crazy. It's a game of momentum. When you have it, you're on. You don't, you really struggle."
The third set was a near repeat of the second as Gilmour jumped out to an 8-1 lead. This time, the Redskins came back and pared the deficit to 15-12. The Lancers pushed the lead back up to 21-15 and later 23-18 before the Redskins trimmed the deficit again before Julia Brzozowski scored the final kill to put Gilmour up 2-1.
"When we got here today, I told the girls there was nothing to worry about," Gilmour coach Danny Coughlin said. "Once we're here, it's all off the table. It's how you play the game. If we come out and play our aggressive way, it is what it is. We have to play our game and they have to stop us, just like (St. Henry) plays their game and we have to stop them."
The fourth set was a battle of wills with neither team getting an early advantage. With the score tied 7-7, back-to-back attack errors by the Lancers followed by a Siefring kill gave the Redskins a 10-7 lead. Gilmour cut down the deficit to one on several occasions, but St. Henry maintained the lead and pulled away down the stretch as Cara Brockman served up eight straight points to end the set and go to the first-to-15 wins final set.
"Believe in yourselves and have confidence," was Kramer's words to her team before the fifth set. "The bottom line was to have fun."
"I didn't have to tell them much," Coughlin said. "They knew what was on the line."
The Redskins won the chance to serve first in the set, but Julia Brzozowski scored a kill to give the Lancers the serve. Olivia Nestor served up three straight points, including an ace, to make it 4-0 and forced Kramer to call timeout. St. Henry cut it to 4-2 and later 5-4 but Turk scored a kill and Megan Brzozowski served up three points to put the lead at 9-4. The Redskins got no closer than three points the rest of the way as the Lancers scored the last three points of the match with Turk getting a block for the clinching point.
"We came out and got on a run," Coughlin said. "The ball fell our way today."
"We started out a little tentative. We made too many mistakes," Kramer said of the fifth set. "Give credit to Gilmour. They're a great team. They won it today."
Turk had 15 kills to lead all players in the match. Grbac had 12 kills and seven block assists.
Niekamp finished with 12 kills for St. Henry. Stammen, one of six seniors playing their final match for St. Henry, added 11 kills. Her classmates, Broering and Gerlach, had 39 assists and 16 digs respectively.
"I'm very proud of them. They were great leaders," Kramer said of the seniors, who also included Savannah Wourms, Katherine Davis and Brockman. "They fought hard, either in practice or in games. You can never count us out because no deficit was too big to overcome. They're winners, no matter the outcome today. They'll be winners for the rest of their lives."
Photo by Mark Pummell/The Daily Standard
St. Henry's Claudia Heitkamp, left, and Britney Siefring drop down to keep the ball from hitting the court during Saturday's Division III state volleyball championship match with Gilmour Academy at the Nutter Center on the campus of Wright State University.
Photo by Mark Pummell/The Daily Standard
St. Henry's Madison Broering, 9, and Ellie Stammen, go up for a block against Gilmour Academy at the Nutter Center on Saturday.
Photo by Mark Pummell/The Daily Standard
St. Henry's Olivia Niekamp spikes the ball past Gilmour Academy's Katie Forsythe during Satuday's match.
Photo by Mark Pummell/The Daily Standard
St. Henry's Savannah Wourms bumps the ball to a teammate as Gilmour Academy's Ella Grbac watches during Saturday's state title match at the Nutter Center.
Photo by Mark Pummell/The Daily Standard
St. Henry seniors Madison Broering, Katie Gerlach, Savannah Wourms, Ellie Stammen, Katherine Davis and Cara Brockman await the presentation of the Division III state runner-up trophy at the conclusion of Saturday's state championship match.
