Bulldogs show resilience

FORT RECOVERY - For one set, Fort Recovery had Celina on its heels and out of sorts.

But when the Bulldogs found their footing, they never looked back.

Celina cruised to wins in the next two sets and pulled away late in the fourth for a 16-25, 25-19, 25-16, 25-16 win in a Tuesday night volleyball match at Fort Site Fieldhouse.

"Fort Recovery's a great team, they've got a big block, great hitters - everything was going their way in that first set," Celina coach Phil Bange said. "But our girls, just very proud of them. They really rallied, they brought energy in that second one, and once they got rolling, everything fell into place."

Celina (6-3) never led in the opening set, with Fort Recovery (3-5) taking the lead at 2-1 and pulling away after the Bulldogs closed to 11-8. Teigen Fortkamp kicked off a four-point service run with a pair of aces, and Allysen Fullenkamp had back-to-back blocks to stretch the lead to 10 at 19-9.

Celina mustered a late run, outscoring the Indians 6-3 down the stretch, but aces from Grace Klingshirn and Faith Wendel helped Fort Recovery maintain the margin. Another Fullenkamp block gave the Indians set point and the Bulldogs failed to return Audra Bubp's serve to close out the set.

But the Indians never led again.

"Their 5-1 setter (Payton Bertke) really did a nice job the last three sets pulling my block, and then my block was non-existent," Fort Recovery coach Travis Guggenbiller said. "That was the biggest difference from the first set to the last three. Really smart, was aggressive pulling our block, and then we were out of system all the time too."

Celina took the first point of the second set and started on a 5-2 run. After a lob fell between the Bulldogs' blockers and the net to cut the lead to 7-5, a hitting error gave Allison Schwieterman the ball and she served up seven straight points, forcing Guggenbiller to burn both his timeouts, stretching the lead to nine.

Samantha Jenkins added a five-point service run to make it 21-10 before the Indians rallied a little, finishing the set on a 9-4 run. Mylee Sapp blocked a shot from Klingshirn for set point, and after the Indians picked up two more points, a hitting error closed it out.

In the third, Jenkins served up six straight points, including a block and a kill by Amelia Lutz, to stake the Bulldogs to an 8-2 lead. Fort Recovery got no closer than four the rest of the way, with Brooklyn Bourne adding a five-point service run to give Celina its biggest lead of the night at 21-9. Sapp spiked a shot for set point, the Indians staved off defeat for two more points, and a serve into the net put the Bulldogs up 2-0.

"A lot of it started with the serve receive," Bange said. "When our passes are behind the 10-foot line, it's very limited options that we have. Our serve receive really stepped it up after that first set and we had a lot of three-option passes."

Bourne got the first kill of the fourth, Sarah Giesige served up five straight points, and Evie Holstad got back-to-back kills to give Celina a 12-6 lead and force Guggenbiller to call time. The Indians came back to life, as Fortkamp got a block and a kill and Mara Pearson spiked an errant serve receive to cut the lead to 14-13.

After a Celina timeout, Fortkamp's serve sailed over the back line, and the Indians sandwiched two hitting errors around a double-hit to give Celina an 18-13 lead.

Another Fort Recovery timeout stopped the parade of errors, but the Indians never recovered. Celina closed the match on a 13-3 run, with Lutz firing a shot down the left line to finish off the win.

"We've got to get out of these ruts," Guggenbiller said. "Earlier in the year, in the summer, we did a nice job of getting out of ruts, not allowing them to affect us. Here in the pressure, in the game, we're not handling it well. We're allowing it to snowball into another error. So we've got to do a better job of handling the pressure."

Lutz finished with 13 kills with Bourne adding 11. Sapp recorded 10 kills and five blocks, Schwieterman chipped in 24 digs and Bertke finished with 40 assists.

Fortkamp led the Indians with eight kills and three aces. Fullenkamp finished with six blocks.

Conference play resumes Thursday, with Celina back home to take on Kenton in a Western Buckeye League matchup and Fort Recovery traveling to face Midwest Athletic Conference rival Versailles.