St. Henry beats Minster

ST. HENRY - St. Henry came out on the attack and never let up.

The Redskins rolled past the Wildcats in the first two sets and closed out the third on the way to a 25-15, 25-17, 25-20 win in a Midwest Athletic Conference volleyball match at Redskin Gymnasium on Thursday.

"Just staying aggressive, everybody being an option," St. Henry coach Tricia Rosenbeck said about the Redskins hitters. "Getting off the net, everybody being available for Lydia (Werling) to set. I thought she made some great choices tonight with her setting, and we were putting balls away."

Minster (8-10, 1-5 MAC) put up its best fight in the third set, tying the score five times and taking a lead at 7-6 before the Redskins carved out some breathing room. Claire Wendel tied the set at seven with a kill and Minster was whistled for a pre-serve violation to put St. Henry back on top, and a pair of Wildcats errors gave the Redskins a 10-7 lead.

St. Henry started to pull away twice, taking a 16-11 lead on a kill off the net by Brianna Siefring and an 18-13 lead when Mya Ontrop spiked a Minster pass that strayed over the net. But the Wildcats kept coming back, cutting the lead to 20-18 after a Redskins hitting error.

Siefring was the one who finally put Minster away, earning three straight kills, two on tip shots, to give St. Henry a 23-18 lead. After a St. Henry serve went into the net, Siefring spiked the shot across the court and off Lilly Barhorst to give the Redskins match point.

"Not only does she swing aggressively, she's also smart about what she does with the ball, she throws in some tips and some roll shots," Rosenbeck said. "But she's definitely someone we look to when things get tough, and she's been answering our call."

From there, the two teams traded serves into the net to seal the Redskins' victory.

The St. Henry serve was up-and-down, making up for stretches of errors with brilliant moments. The Redskins had seven service errors in the third set alone, coming off four in the first set and five in the second.

But it also put Minster in difficult straits, including three straight Wildcats receiving errors to get the Redskins to set point in the first. Lydia Werling turned in three straight aces to open the second set and the Wildcats never recovered, with St. Henry leading by at least three the rest of the way.

"We're focusing on serving aggressive to get us on some runs," Rosenbeck said. "Once you get on some runs, you can kind of break the game open, then we sided out in our serve receive to finish the game."

Minster gave the Redskins some help, including the run of receiving errors at the end of the first. At the end of the second set, the Wildcats committed three hitting errors to seal a 25-17 loss.

"When we get frustrated, we start playing really tight," Minster coach Cami Garman said. "At that point, when you're down eight, nine, 10 points, you should be playing free volleyball. At that point, just go out there and play and try to get some momentum. But we start playing outside of our comfort zone, and we start making silly mistakes."

The Wildcats came in off a win against Arcanum that snapped a five-match losing streak, with adjustments on defense helping key the win. Garman trotted out the new-look defense again to start Thursday's match, but was forced to ditch it in the middle of the second set as the Redskins pulled ahead.

"When you play rotational defense, it really asks your block to do a lot of work, and our block wasn't doing very well the first two sets," Garman said. "Once we changed our defense up, that allowed us to get a couple more points too."

Siefring finished with 16 kills, while Werling racked up 31 assists, 13 digs, and six aces. Alyssa Niemeyer led Minster with seven kills and 11 digs.

St. Henry gets a chance to extend its winning streak to five on Saturday at the Crestview Invite, while Minster returns home to take on Fort Recovery.