By MARK RUSCHAU
Standard Correspondent
ST. HENRY — The St. Henry Redskin volleyball squad bided
its time Thursday in their key early season Midwest Athletic
Conference matchup with New Bremen, but when it was time to
play, they played. Showing lethargic play at times, the Redskins
were still able to win 15-11, 15-8.
St. Henry improves to 7-1 overall and 3-0 in the conference
while New Bremen falls to 6-2 and 2-1 in the MAC.
“That was really an ugly win,” said St. Henry coach
Lori Schwieterman. “We really played lethargically tonight.
We played tough against Lehman on Tuesday night and maybe we
had a little letdown. We just weren’t ourselves tonight.”
“We played one great game, unfortunately, it was at the
end of the first and the start of the second game,” said
New Bremen coach Lisa Thobe. “We played the end of the
first game good and started the second game well, but we were
unable to finish.
“We’ve had that problem all year,” continued
Thobe. “We seem to play very smart and aggressive volleyball
for six or eight points and then we don’t mentally stick
with it.
St. Henry came out smoking as it scored the first five points
of the game and never trailed. Christa Schwartz started the
game with a service winner. A Cardinal hitting error, a kill
by Lindsay Puthoff and another Schwartz service winner made
the score 4-0, forcing a New Bremen timeout.
After the timeout, Cami Lefeld and Lanae Mikesell combined on
a block to make the score 5-0.
New Bremen battled back into the game as it was able to come
as close as 12-9. The Cardinals were able to take advantage
of sloppy Redskin play as they scored four points on hitting
errors and three more on service winners.
St. Henry got kills from Christie Hess and Puthoff to move to
game point, 14-9.
New Bremen was able to close to 14-11 as Julie Griesdorn and
Kacie Schmiesing recorded kills. After an exchange of sideouts,
a hitting error by the Cardinals’ Anna Schlater ended
the first game.
In game two, it was New Bremen that came out smoking as it combined
two St. Henry hitting errors and kills by Griesdorn and Ashley
Egbert to take a 4-0 lead. New Bremen was able to expand the
lead to 6-1 as it got two more points off St. Henry defensive
errors.
At this juncture, the St. Henry defense reasserted itself. Over
the final eight New Bremen service rotations, they could only
muster two more points. Over those eight rotations, the ’Skins
recorded eight defensive kills, Lindsay Hess recorded four of
them. For the match, Hess recorded eight defensive kills.
“I thought Lindsay Hess had a great match,” said
Schwieterman. “She had a great game with her kills, she
kept us in the second game.”
The ’Skins took their first lead of the game, as they
scored six straight points. Puthoff had two kills, Schwartz
and Lindsay Hess each added one.
New Bremen tied the game one last time at 7-7 on a service winner
by Egbert.
St. Henry took the lead for good at 9-7, on a Puthoff kill and
a Cardinals hitting error. New Bremen came as close as 9-8 on
a Anna Schlater kill. The Cardinals hung around a little as
they forced four scoreless rotations.
St. Henry finished off the game as it scored four points on
a pair of kills by Christie Hess and two New Bremen hitting
errors. After an exchange of sideouts, Christie Hess recorded
a kill and the game ended on a New Bremen hitting error.
“We finally got after it a little bit late in the second
game,” said Schwieterman. “We played a good defensive
game.”
“It seemed like when they made their run at us we seemed
to cringe a little bit, hoping not make a mistake instead of
trying to win,” said Thobe. “As soon as a team like
St. Henry gets a little run going it’s hard to stop them.”
St. Henry returns to action on Saturday at the Bath Invite.
The Skins open play at 10 a.m. against Northwood. New Bremen
is in action on Saturday as well, traveling to Anna for a tri-match
with the home Rockets and Covington.
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