Staff report
TROY — One thing was decided for certain Wednesday night in the Division 4 Regional Volleyball Tournament — it was a good decision to move the event from cramped Brookville High School to spacious Troy High School.
New Bremen at 22-3 was matched up against 18-8 Fort Loramie, the 2014 state champion. And it was an impressive turnout of fans, with New Bremen nearly filling one entire side.
The Lady Cardinals continued the play that has attracted all those fans, eliminating the Lady Redskins in three straight, the scores being 25-18, 25-18, 25-17.
New Bremen now gets a rematch with top-ranked Jackson Center on Saturday at 2 p.m. at Troy in the regional championship game. When the two teams met during the regular season, New Bremen won the first two games before Jackson rallied back to take the next three.
Fort Loramie closes out another excellent campaign at 18-9.
New Bremen won it despite a lot of trouble at the service line throughout the match.
Bremen led 4-2 early before kills by Caleigh Barhorst and Sara Stang evened the match. It was tied again at 8-8 after Barhorst served back-to-back aces, but that was the last time New Bremen would trail in the first game.
Paige Jones, the state single-season record-holder for kills, pounded one down for a 9-8 lead and it started a 4-0 run that ended with another Jones kill.
After Jones had another kill to make it 16-11, the two teams traded service errors, two by Bremen, and it was 17-13. Loramie would get within 19-16 on another ace by Barhorst, but that was as close as the Lady Redskins could get.
Jones had five kills in the first game.
After a 1-1 start to the second game, New Bremen reeled off the next seven points to open up an 8-1 lead, the last coming on a block by Logan Wells.
After a service error, Bremen got a dink from Rachel Kremer to go up 10-2.
Fort Loramie battled back to within 13-9 on a block, an ace and a Abby Holthaus kill, but Bremen pulled away again to an 18-10 lead when Kremer dinked one over the net.
However, the Lady Cardinals pulled away again, and it ended on a Jones kill.
Jones led off the final game with a kill, but it was close for quite a while. In fact, an ace by Barhorst tied the game at 16-16. But a block by Bremen’s Macy Puthoff gave Bremen a 17-16 lead and the Lady Cardinals took off from there, allowing the Lady Redskins just one more point the rest of the match.
JC-Lehman
Jackson Center upped its record to 27-0 on the year and set up a rematch with the Lady Cardinals of New Bremen with a 3-0 win over Lehman Thursday night in the second semifinal at Troy.
It was the second 3-0 win for Jackson Center over Lehman this season, and the state’s top-ranked team will try for a return trip to the state tournament Saturday at 2 p.m. against Bremen. Lehman bows out at 16-11.
The scores against Lehman were 25-15, 25-14, 25-12.
Jackson jumped to an early lead in the first game at 9-2 on a Camryn Hoehne serve and Lehman got no closer than 11-7 the rest of the way.
But in game two, after a Raquel Kessler block for Jackson for a 1-0 lead, Lehman showed signs of life, getting two kills from Chapman, a block and a mishit by the Lady Tigers for a 4-1 lead.
But the Lady Tigers regrouped and too the lead at 6-5 on a kill by Hoehne, and never trailed again. The closest the Lady Cavs got after that was 12-10, but the Lady Tigers responded with three in a row for a 15-10 lead.
The Lady Tigers dominated from the start in the third set, opening up an 18-6 lead. Lehman rallied with three straight for an 18-9 score, but A. Kessler came up with another block and the Lady Tigers rolled on to a 21-11 lead.
For Jackson, Hoehne had an excellent game, with 19 assists, nine digs, six kills and four aces. Cassie Meyer had 13 kills and 11 digs, Christen Ware three blocks and seven digs, Kamryn Elchert 12 assists, and Alicia Kessler seven kills and four blocks.
