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St. Marys' Audrey Reineke (18) spikes the ball as Celina's Hailey Hinton (4) and Lilly Shreffler defend during Thursday's WBL volleyball at the Intermediate School in Celina.
CELINA - Midway through the fourth set, Celina looked to be firmly in control against St. Marys.
The Bulldogs dominated the second and third sets and were en route to taking the match up 14-8.
The Roughriders, however, were in no mood, rallying to come back to take the fourth set, then dominated the fifth set to win the Battle of Grand Lake 25-23, 14-25, 10-25, 25-23, 15-6 at Celina Intermediate School to snap a two-match losing streak and go to 2-0 in the Western Buckeye League.
"We've been talking about playing consistently, not letting our mistakes get to us and continuing to just play Roughrider volleyball," said St. Marys coach - and former Celina player - Caley Yoder. "I think at the very end of the night we finally saw us starting to trust each other, not starting to, but really, just having faith in what we can do."
The match was all about momentum. St. Marys got a burst of mometum at the end of the first set after trailing 15-11 at one point before going on a run and tying the game at 21-all on an Averie Ibarra ace, then Kalle Halko put the Roughriders in the lead with a kill. Celina came back and took a 23-22 lead, but a kill by Reelyn Montague tied the set again, then Avery Dieringer served up two straight aces to take the opening set.
Celina's Myah Ly (12) goes up to spike the ball against St. Marys.
Celina responded quickly. Five straight points by Trisha Stein made it 11-3 in the second set, then Breanna Kinnicutt added four straight to push the margin to 16-4 en route to leveling the match.
Kinnicutt kept up the serving prowess, rattling off four aces during an eight-point run to turn a 9-5 lead into a 16-5 lead in the third set en route to taking a 2-1 match lead.
In the fourth set, Celina led 3-0 early as Kambry Yoder had a pair of aces. The lead went up to 14-8 with the Bulldogs serving, only to lose serve via a sideout as Piper Marsee went back for St. Marys. Marsee rattled off six straight points to put St. Marys in front 15-14 as Audrey Reineke had a couple of big kills during the run. Celina tied it at 15-all, but St. Marys regained the lead and fought off Celina down the stretch. The Roughriders were up 24-21 with the serve, but two straight hitting errors cut it to 24-23 before Ibarra got the final kill to send the match to a fifth set.
"We had confidence in the second and third set, and then a few mistakes crept into our brains, and before you knew it, we let it snowball," said Celina coach Amy Sutter. "We've been talking a lot about not letting you know, more than 2-3 points get away from us. We just collapsed and we couldn't recover. I don't know how to fix it."
"We've been working on serving. We just have to be confident what we're doing back there and be confident to take the ball," said Yoder.
St. Marys' Reelyn Montague (12) goes up to spike the ball against Celina.
The Roughriders won the toss and Addison Fry went back to start serving. Montague, Reienke and Ella Schlarman got early kills to put the Roughriders in front 4-0 and force Sutter to call a time out. After the break, a spike into the set gave Celina the serve, but after getting it to 4-2, Reineke got another kill. The big run came with Taylor Meyer serving. Kills by Ibarra and Halko got the Roughriders to within two points of closing out at 13-4. Celina got a point and the serve, but was unable to get a return over the next in three tries, giving St. Marys match point at 14-5. A net serve delayed the celebration, but a Montague kill wrapped up the night.
"The girls are feeling great," said Yoder. "It was just overall a whole team win. We just played together and we need to do that all the time."
"If I had an answer, I'd have it fixed," said Sutter. "But we are our own worst enemies."
Reineke had 14 kills for St. Marys. Halko added 12 kills and five blocks. Dieringer recorded 22 digs with Marsee tallying 13 digs. Fry had 34 assists.
St. Marys has a short break before returning Saturday with a matinee road trip to Ridgemont. Celina is off until next Thursday for a WBL matchup at Van Wert.
