Clean sweep

NEW KNOXVILLE - A pair of unbeaten teams clashed Thursday at The Barn. One of them hadn't lost a set this season.

And it stayed that way for New Knoxville.

The Division IV sixth-ranked Rangers swiftly swept the eighth-ranked Indians of Fort Recovery - 25-17, 25-17, 25-22 - in a performance first-year coach Meg (Reineke) Lageman called "relentless."

"I told the girls that it was going to be a dogfight - every MAC game is," Lageman said. "Fort Recovery is ranked eighth in the state, and they were undefeated as well. I don't think we expected (a sweep), but we came out and played well. There were highs and lows, but we kept the energy the whole time. We played relentless and that's what we needed to do.

"We played relentless defense and we were aggressive," she added. "Even when they went on runs, we were still ready and got it back. We kept them out of system, and that was the biggest key tonight."

Morgan Leffel and Carsyn Henschen combined for a number of kills and blocks early in set one, leading the Rangers out to a 15-5 advantage after the score had been tied at 4-apiece. Paige Fortkamp countered with five kills, but it wasn't enough as the Indians fell behind by 11 at one point in suffering just their fifth set loss of the year.

Ellie Gabel went on a lengthy service run to open set two as New Knoxville raced out to a 6-0 lead. Fort eventually cut their deficit to 11-10, thanks in large part to aces by Fortkamp and Kierra Wendel and a net stuff by Whitley Rammel. But Leffel stopped Fort's momentum with a spike and then Gabel added her second ace of the set to help Knoxville increase its lead back to six. A third ace by Gabel ultimately closed out the set.

The Indians scored the first two points of set three. Then Gabel dialed up another ace as she began another nice service run that sent Knoxville in front. The set was tied eight times before Knoxville pulled away at the end.

The Rangers improved to 8-0. The Indians dropped to 7-1.

"Our first ball contact was terrible today," Fort Recovery coach Travis Guggenbiller said. "You can't have 14 service errors and only two aces - you're never going to win a game. There were probably only 10 times when we actually had a girl serve the ball more than one time in a row. You're never going to win a game like that, and our serve receive struggled today. But New Knoxville really came out to play. They're a great team."

Carsyn Henschen had 10 kills for New Knoxville. Gabel recorded 21 assists

Both teams are back in action on Saturday. New Knoxville travels to Fort Loramie and Fort Recovery is at Arcanum.