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[ PREVIOUS STORIES ]

10-22-03: Panthers drop Cavs from tourney

By RYAN HINES
rhines@dailystandard.com

HAVILAND — Scouting an opponent can become an integral ingredient for a team in any sport, but even the best scouting doesn’t help a team that doesn’t execute the keys from the scouting report.
That wasn’t a problem for Parkway on Tuesday as the Panthers executed head coach Todd Henkle’s game plan to the tune of a 15-13, 15-9 win over Coldwater in Division III district semifinal action at Wayne Trace High School.
The Panthers (9-14) now play Swanton (15-7) on Saturday at Napoleon’s Grand Canyon at 2 p.m. with a district title on the line. Coldwater bows out of tournament play with a 13-11 record.
“We had a pretty good scouting report on what we wanted to do to them off of tape from earlier in the season and we found what we thought were some weakness in their serve receive and we tried to take advantage of those,” said Henkle. “You can do all the preparation you want, but it’s the girls that execute the game plan and we executed well tonight. I told the girls that we are a good team when we decide that we want to play and show we can play. I don’t care what our record is we played with guts and determination and it paid off.”
Precision serving and outstanding defense paved the way for the Panthers to pull somewhat of an upset over the Cavaliers. Coldwater had beaten Parkway earlier in the season 15-8, 10-15, 15-13.
Despite having already lost to Coldwater this season, Parkway was in no way intimidated on Tuesday and it showed in their play as both teams dueled to a 9-9 tie in game one with neither team holding more than a three-point lead.
Parkway broke the 9-9 tie behind back-to-back passing and hitting errors on Coldwater to give the Panthers an 11-9 advantage leading to a Cavaliers timeout. Another Cavaliers passing error after the timeout was followed by a kill from Parkway’s Cassie Steinbrunner putting the Panthers on top 13-9.
Behind the serving of Coldwater’s Karla Niekamp, Parkway made two serve-receiving errors and Cavaliers sophomore Brittany Klenke had two kills to knot things at 13-13 leading to a Panthers timeout. It was the seventh and final time that the score was tied in the first game.
Parkway’s Rebekah Roehm had a kill to get the serve back for the Panthers and then Amanda Jutte had a kill of her own to make it game point before Roehm ended the first game with another kill.
“We just can’t seem to get the big point when we need to have it and that has been our problem all year long,” said Coldwater head coach Jeanette Vaughn. “We had many opportunities to put the first game away, but we lack that killer instinct that you need in those situations.”
The disappointing finish from game one carried over to game two for the Cavaliers as Parkway built a 12-0 lead.
“We didn’t do anything right early in the second game,” admitted Vaughn. “In those first 12 points of the second game we couldn’t pass the ball, hit the ball or serve receive the ball. It was a total mental breakdown. You can’t dig a hole that big against good teams.”
“Coldwater is a good team and I think that was kind of a fluky situation where we did serve them tough, but they shanked some balls and got in a hole,” said Henkle.
Jutte served the Panthers to the first five points before Coldwater tried to stop the run with a timeout. Jutte had an ace, and Emily Snyder had a kill and a block to highlight the early part of the run.
Six more points from Parkway to make it 11-0 led to another Coldwater timeout and the Panthers added the 12th point before the Cavaliers could even dent the scoreboard.
“I think that winning the first game with the intensity in that game carried over to the second match early and gave us a jump start,” said Henkle.
Once Coldwater scored its first point, the Cavaliers reeled off nine straight points of their own to make it 12-9 behind the play of Katie Homan and Alyssa Vogel. Homan had two kills and a block during the Coldwater comeback while Vogel added a block and a kill of her own.
That was as close as Coldwater could get, though, as Parkway scored the final three points in succession off of Deidre Adams’ serve. A kill from Abby Harner was sandwiched between two Adams aces to clinch the two-game victory.
Adams was lethal with her serve all night with three aces to pace the Parkway service game that totaled six aces and caused constant scrambling for the Cavaliers defense.
“I don’t know if it was their good serving or our poor serve receive, but we just couldn’t serve receive tonight,” said Vaughn.
Snyder and Roehm put good contact on their spikes all night picking up 10 and nine kills, respectively to lead Parkway while Harner had five kills and Jutte with four kills.
“It all came down to our scouting report and putting the right girls in the right positions,” noted Henkle. “We knew some of Coldwater’s tendencies and we executed well. Snyder and Roehm played exceptional for us and they scored some big points.”
Jackie Kahlig was the top hitter for Coldwater with 11 kills to go along with three blocks while Niekamp, Klenke and Homan each had five kills.
Saturday will mark the first time that the Panthers have been to the district finals since 1998 at Findlay.
“This is a huge win for us and I told the girls that they are the ones that get to enjoy this type of experience because I’ve been there before,” said Henkle. “Getting to where we want to go is going to be very tough, but it’s achievable if the girls all believe.”

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