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St. Henry makes it eleven in a row By Jim Jicha St. Henry won their eleventh consecutive and 23rd overall Midwest Athletic Conference title last night with a convincing 15-1, 15-11 win over previously unbeaten Minster. The match was played at Minster before a large crowd estimated to be upwards of a thousand people. Before the match fans expected lots of scoring from Wildcat middle hitter Robyn Hoying and St. Henry’s Team Atlantis star outsider hitter Lindsay Puthoff. But that was not to be. As it turned out that no one player dominated this match. But one name did. Hess. St. Henry has three of them, Kim, Christie and Lindsay. And they took turns taking charge at key points, even teaming up at one point. Minster drew first blood in game one. On the first play after senior Hoying broke St. Henry’s initial serve, a St. Henry player was under the net to give the Wildcats their first, and only as it turned out, point. After that it was all St. Henry as the Redskins rolled up 15 unanswered scores. Five of their first eight points came on errors by the Wildcats. Another came on a tip into a hole by Lindsay Hess after Minster had rejected her spike. Christie Hess scored point 7 on a kill. Nicole Elking scored points 9 and 10 tipping crosscourt from the left into a hole on Minster’s left, then smashing a spike that was blocked out of bounds. At this juncture, even though Minster was not scoring, there had been sixteen sideouts. Minster got one more when St. Henry player was in the net, but after Elking nailed another kill, Kim and Lindsay Hess took over the game. With Kim on the line, Lindsey scored twice on a block and a kill. Kim then served up two aces, and Lindsay’s block scored game point. In game two Minster got on the board first again on an ace by Stephanie Freytag. Puthoff ended that with a kill off a backset from Christa Schwartz. Puthoff and Cami Lefeld then blocked Hoying to tie it. Wildcat setter Laura Morsey scored on a block but Lefeld countered with a kill. The teams then traded service errors. This is worthy of note because those were the only serving faux pas of the evening. With the score 3-3, St. Henry’s Christie Hess took over. The Redskins moved ahead when her spike was dug into the ceiling too hard. On her next spike Minster took fours hits. Hess hit one over the blockers that landed in back court. And then she nailed a kill to make it 7-3. But the score got knotted up in a hurry as the Redskins began making errors. First they blocked a Minster spike out of bounds. After two errant hits followed by four hit call the score was 7-6. And then came some irony, as at long last Hoying and Puthoff got involved in the scoring. But it wasn’t the kind of scoring the fans were looking forward to. Puthoff hit one out to give Minster the tying score. Then Hoying hit one out, and followed this with another long missive to give St. Henry the lead. This isn’t to pick on Hoying or Puthoff. For much the second game blockers on both sides were getting pieces of the ball, and it was almost impossible to put anything down inbounds and untouched. With play on both sides intensifying, the teams traded sideouts. Hoying hit a smash right at someone who dug it into the net. Her next hit was also a kill, forcing another sideout. Kim Hess won a big play at the net. On the next play the ball dropped on St. Henry’s side of the floor after a pancake dig by Minster. This was followed by a great volley that was ended by an unfortunate error on Minster’s part. Minster dug a smash by Christie Hess, but their ensuing hit was out for a Redskin point. Lindsay Hess followed with a kill that went straight down. That made it 10-7 Redskins. Then Wildcats got a sideout on Jodie Westerheide’s kill and caught fire. Laura Gruber served short and scored an ace. A four hit call on the visitors and a double block by Valerie Bornhorst and Danyel Monnin tied it up. After a Redskin timeout, Gruber’s second ace put Minster up 11-10. Since the timeout didn’t do the trick Kim Hess put a stop to the Wildcat rally. A Wildcat defender dug her spike, but she came right back with a straight down kill. St. Henry took a 13-11 lead thanks to two errant hits and a two hit call. Westerheide gave her team one last chance with a nice kill through St. Henry’s blockers. Then, at last, Lindsay Puthoff took over. She singed the far line with a spike forcing a sideout, and Schwartz stepped to the serving line. After a lot of volleying and net play, Puthoff got a spike through the block to go down to make it 14-11. And when an errant Wildcat pass came her way she did what any hitter loves to do. Slam. Game, match and title to St. Henry. There are other teams around Ohio who dominate their leagues, some even more than St. Henry. What makes the Redskins’ streak so impressive is the caliber of teams they beat out, year after year. St. Henry has not been to State the past three years because they have lost in districts, each time to league teams they beat out in the conference crown. But those teams have proceeded to go to State. Minster made it in 2001. Marion Local made it in 2000, and again last year when they lost to undefeated Norwalk St. Paul in the final 15-9, 13-15, 13-15. In 1996 and 1997 Rockford Parkway won the Division III State Title, but St. Henry won the MAC. In 1994, Coldwater was a Division III semifinalist. While St. Henry has been amassing their league titles, four other conference members have been to state? How many other teams have eleven titles in a row against that kind of a field?
Midwest Athletic Conference records
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