Redskins on target

ST. HENRY - With all the hard-hitting spikes, the brick-wall blocking and dives to the floor to save the ball, volleyball comes down to serving.

St. Henry's Julia Holdheide proved that on Tuesday night in the second set of a Mercer County battle with Celina.

With the Redskins trailing 13-11, Holdheide served up 14 straight points to give St. Henry a 2-0 lead in the match. Celina came back and fought hard in the third set before St. Henry held on for the 25-15, 25-13, 25-23 win at Redskin Gymnasium to move to 4-1 on the season.

After losing the first set by 10, Celina trailed 5-2 early in the second set before Paige Duncan, Maddy Luebke and McKenna Black started finding their hitting prowess to go up 13-10. Ashley Siefring tallied a kill to make it 13-11 and give the Redskins the serve as Holdheide went back to the service line.

Mixing up her serves between floaters and hard directional shots, Celina became flummoxed. Three of the first four service points were on Celina hitting errors. The Bulldogs recovered somewhat on their serve receive, only for the Redskins to start finding their hitting stroke. Addy Vaughn, Olivia Clune and Carleigh Deitsch each had kills that made the score 20-13. Holdheide then applied the coup de grâce with three straight aces, followed by a Celina hitting error, and then she ended the set with her fifth ace of the service run.

"Julia is one of our most aggressive and consistent servers," St. Henry coach Tricia Rosenbeck said. "We talked about how first contact is so important. She took over that (second set). She found a way to get them out of system, which benefitted us."

"We had that one rotation where we really struggled on serve receive," Celina coach Amy Sutter said. "We had to mentally get over that hurdle."

Undaunted by the end of the second set, Celina went toe-to-toe with St. Henry in round three. The teams were tied five times up to the 12-12 mark of the set before the Bulldogs got consecutive kills by Black followed by an ace by Paige Duncan to help the Bulldogs take a 16-12 lead. St. Henry rebounded and were able to tie the set at 17-, 18-, 20-, 21- and 22-all, With Deitsch serving, a Celina hitting error gave the Redskins their first lead since 11-10. The next serve was unreturnable within the allotted three hits to give St. Henry match point. Black saved match point with a kill, but Danielle Lange recorded the final kill to give St. Henry the win.

"They're a nice team," Sutter said of St. Henry. "We talked about how we have to play our own game, take care of the ball, play aggressive and not let those big hits get us down. First two sets, we had a lot of our own unforced errors."

"Celina has some very good hitters. When they can pass the ball to the target, they put balls down," Rosenbeck said. "We knew it was going to be a tough match. We were able to respond when they made runs."

Black and Duncan eachhad eight kills. Luebke finished with six kills and five blocks

Siefring had 12 kills and Britney Siefring added 11 kills for St. Henry. Holdheide finished with six aces and added 15 digs. Addy Vaughn dished out 18 assists.

Both teams begin league play on Thursday. St. Henry travels to Maria Stein to face Marion Local in the MAC opener. Celina goes to Hardin County for the WBL lidlifter at Kenton.