Solid sweep

ST. HENRY - As of Tuesday, the St. Henry volleyball team is 5-0.

With plenty of room to grow.

Tricia Rosenbeck's squad swept Celina on Tuesday night, winning by scores of 25-10, 25-21 and 25-12 at Redskin Gymnasium for their fourth consecutive sweep. The defending MAC champions head into Thursday's conference opener at Coldwater feeling pretty confident, but also knowing there's room for improvement.

"We're super excited about where we're going, but we still feel like we have a lot to work on and we can still get better, which is super exciting, too," Rosenbeck said. "We have our little issues - like not siding out on the first ball - that was our issue tonight. We just let them go on too many runs and that's not acceptable."

St. Henry's issues came in the middle set on Tuesday, but in the end, the Redskins' length, depth and athleticism won out.

"They've got a big tradition and they've earned it," Celina coach Amy Sutter said. "They're super big and athletic. Honestly, they're the whole package. I think they're balanced all over the place. I don't think there's a poor player on that team. Their bench is probably amazing, too. Defensive wise, they don't let anything drop, and that setter manages to keep the ball up and gets it to their hitters and they put the ball away."

The home team started set one on a 7-1 run. Hannah Bruns led the charge with a pair of kills. Samantha Carlin stopped said run with a free ball over the net, Maria Lutz followed with a kill and then Rose McGohan's ace brought Celina's deficit to within three points.

It got no closer, however.

St. Henry countered with a 4-0 run and Marlee Vaughn's six-point service streak later helped it pull away. Five different Redskins had kills in the opener.

Brianna Siefring had a big service run to start set two, collecting three aces in the process as St. Henry built a 6-1 lead. There was no Redskin runaway this time, though.

Celina followed with a 5-0 run. Allison Brown was behind the service line for most of it, with her ace tying the set at 6-6 and forcing Rosenbeck to burn a timeout. The run continued after the timeout, as a pair of St. Henry hitting errors and kills by Maria Lutz and Amelia Lutz stretched the run to 9-0 and prompted Rosenbeck to call for a second team huddle.

"We were just trying to constantly preach to them that they could play with them if they wanted to," Sutter said. "They would just have to expand their range a little bit, go after balls that they would normally give up on and try to generate some offense to push back."

An authoritative swat by Bruns finally stopped the bleeding. Addy Vaughn and Bruns each added a block and kill as St. Henry reclaimed a 12-10 advantage. After that, the set featured three ties and three lead changes. A 5-2 spurt down the stretch, capped by an Addy Vaughn kill, gave St. Henry a four-point win.

"I thought Celina played really well in Game 2," Rosenbeck said. "They were picking balls up. They were super excited. Their defense was great, and they just kept giving us balls and we were making mistakes. We couldn't afford to make mistakes. Game 2 was closer than it needed to be, but give Celina credit."

Bruns had back-to-back spikes in the third set, Siefring added two more aces and St. Henry didn't let up after starting on a 7-1 run.

All-Ohioan Addy Vaughn finished 10 kills, 26 assists, three aces and eight digs. Fellow All-Ohioan Bruns had a game-high 14 kills, Siefring totaled seven aces as part of 16 service points, Marlee Vaughn added 11 digs and Mia Niekamp had five stuffs at the net.

The Lutzs shared team-high honors with five kills for Celina. Maria Lutz also posted five blocks, Brown picked up nine digs and Carlin dished out 18 assists for Celina, which fell to 3-3 overall.

The Bulldogs open Western Buckeye League play on Thursday, hosting Shawnee.

"I think we're much better than we were than when we played against Marion Local," Sutter said. "We're a little bit more aggressive. We're getting a little bit more comfortable with each other and the roles we're playing, and our communication is getting better."