Finding the openings

ROCKFORD - It appeared at first that the St. Marys-Parkway volleyball matchup was going to be a back-and-forth encounter.

Parkway won the opening set, with St. Marys taking a 7-3 lead early in the second set and up 17-15 before the Panthers came back and took the win in extra points. The Roughriders hung tough in the third set, but Division III state-ranked Parkway held tough to earn a 25-16, 28-26, 25-17 win on Monday night at Panther Gymnasium in Rockford.

The Panthers jumped out to a 7-3 lead in the opening set thanks to kills from Gabrielle Stober and Emmery Temple with Stober adding an ace. St. Marys was never able to get any closer than five points the rest of the way as Parkway cruised.

The Roughriders began to figure out the Panther attack in the second set and started making some quality attacks of their own, jumping out 7-3 as Syerra Greber served up four straight points and Brynn Clark added several big kills. But with St. Marys up 17-15, the Panthers got the serve back and Stober served up six straight points to give Parkway a 22-17 lead.

St. Marys bounced back with Gracelyn Johns and Sylvia Wiechart coming up with big service runs to give St. Marys set point at 24-23 before Macy Johnson got a kill to tie the set at 24-all. The Roughriders went up 25-24 on a Greber kill, but were called for being in the net to tie the set again. Parkway then got set point at 26-25 with a Johnson ace, but the Panthers were then called for being in the net to tie the set again at 26-all.

Stober scored a kill to get set point and the serve back and Emiree Knittle tallied the winning kill to put the Panthers in front 2-0.

"I thought in the first set, our first contacts were pretty clean," said Panthers coach Jordan Henkle. "(St. Marys in the second set) got some blocking and we had to start moving it around and figure things out as we went along. We strung enough together at the right time."

The third set started out back-and-forth, with eight ties up to 15-all. Johnson broke the tie with a kill to make it 16-15 and a St. Marys hitting error was followed by a Knittle ace and a Brittyn Bruns kill to make it 19-15, forcing St. Marys coach Caley Yoder to call a timeout. Johnson made it 20-15 and St. Marys was unable to get closer down the stretch.

"At 15-all, there was a long rally and we won the point," said Henkle. "I do think there was a lot of momentum to be had. We carried some at the end."

"Overall, I'm happy with the way we played tonight," said Yoder. "We had streaks of greatness and playing great defensive volleyball and taking it to (Parkway) offensively. Tough loss, but we have two more games this week. We'll focus on them and get through it to play our best volleyball."

Johnson finished with 16 kills for Parkway with Stober adding 15 kills. Bruns had 21 assists and 13 digs.

Clark had nine kills for St. Marys with Greber and Addison Lauth adding seven each. Lily Rammel had 19 assists, nine digs, five kills and two aces.

Parkway (15-3) is off until Thursday when the Panthers host Division IV top-ranked New Bremen. St. Marys (11-8) returns to action tonight in Western Buckeye League play as Elida travels south to Grand Lake Health System Court.