Impressive victory

NEW KNOXVILLE - New Bremen opened its defense of the Midwest Athletic Conference volleyball championship with an impressive 3-0 (25-21, 25-7, 25-23) victory over New Knoxville on Thursday evening in front of a large and raucous crowd at the Barn.

The Cardinals grabbed momentum with a late run in the first set, dominated the second and then held off a determined Ranger effort in the third.

"It's a great win," New Bremen coach Diana Kramer said. "In my varsity coaching experience, every time I've coached in this gym, it's gone five. So after that second set, my message was loud and clear, 'we need to find a way to finish.' New Knoxville is one of the best teams in our league and one of the best teams in our division, so to walk out of here with a 3-0 win speaks volumes."

New Knoxville took control of the first set early, jumping out to a 10-4 lead. New Bremen battled back, thanks in part to three consecutive aces from Abbi Thieman. However, the Rangers maintained the lead until late.

Trailing 20-19, Macy Puthoff got back the serve for the Cardinals with a kill. She followed that by serving up four unanswered points for a 24-20 lead. Following a side out to New Knoxville, Puthoff closed out the set with another kill.

New Bremen carried the momentum into the second set that they finished on a 16-2 run for the 25-7 win.

"That first set comeback was huge," Kramer said. "We were down the entire set until, I believe, our first lead was at 21. We had a big deficit at the beginning but kept chipping away. Our blocking picked up, our serving picked up, and that kind of propelled us to victory. But that took all the life out of New Knoxville for that second set."

"Once that shift in momentum occurred, we got down and couldn't quite get back up," New Knoxville coach Morgan Strayer said. "I feel like we're lacking the confidence that we need. I don't think these girls really believe how much talent we have and what we're capable of."

New Knoxville led by as many as four points early in the third set, but once the set was tied at 15, it was nip-and-tuck to the end. Beginning with 15-15, the third set finished with nine ties and six lead changes before New Bremen scored the final two points for the 25-23 clincher.

"I was happy with the third set," Strayer said. "After that second set, we could have easily given up, but we didn't, so I'm proud of the girls for that. Volleyball is totally a game of mental toughness, and we really need to work on being tough and being able to come back from an error."

New Knoxville slipped to 5-2 overall for the season and 0-1 in the MAC. The Rangers were led by Tasia Lauth with nine kills. Megan Jurosic added seven kills and four blocks.

The Cardinals (4-0, 1-0) were led at the net by Puthoff with eight blocks and six kills. Taylor Paul and Josie Reinhart added six kills each, while Claire Pape contributed 6 blocks and Rachel Kremer 18 service points. New Bremen tallied 11 aces overall, led by Thieman with four.

Coming off a state championship season a year ago, Kramer said her 2018 team is still a work in progress.

"Right now I give us about a D+," she said. "We have a lot of room for improvement and that's why we come to practice every day. Our goal is to get one percent better every single day, and if we get one percent better every single day, by the time tournament comes, we're 60 percent better than we are right now and that about puts us at 100 percent."

New Bremen travels to Jackson Center on Saturday, and hosts St. Marys on Tuesday before a big showdown with the MAC's other defending state champ in reigning Division III champion Versailles next Thursday at the Cardinal Gymnasium.

New Knoxville hosts Delphos St. John's next Thursday. The varsity plays first at 5:30 p.m. followed by the junior varsity.