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Mansfield Madison nips Norwalk in déjà vu district final By Jim Jicha The Norwalk High School volleyball team experienced first hand last Saturday what former New York Yankee catcher Yogi Berra meant when he coined the phrase “it’s déjà vu all over again”. The Lady Truckers, ranked third in the final State Coaches Poll, fell to second ranked Mansfield Madison in the Seneca East District final 29-27, 24-26, 17-25, 27-25, 16-14, and it really was déjà vu. The Rams nipped Norwalk last year in the district semifinal 23-25, 25-20, 25-22, 19-25, 17-15. They ultimately reached the final four with five-game decisions over Milan Edison and Padua Franciscan. These teams have a history and it is lopsided in favor of the Rams who have knocked out the Truckers at least five years in a row and seven of the past nine. Making this defeat all the more hard to take, Norwalk led 24-23 in game four and 14-12 in the tiebreaker. The district final offered a stark contrast between a senior-laden Rams team deep in state tourney experience, and a youthful Norwalk squad that started three juniors, two sophomores and two freshmen, four of them off two Blackswamp Volleyball Club 2011 USAV national champion teams. It’s too bad the teams met this early. In a match worthy of a state final, both teams left all they had on the floor to get what only one of them could, and after two hours and ten minutes of frenzied volleys the Rams “were happily off to the regional” as their coach Jen Lauber aptly put it. Lauber said her team was prepared for a barnburner. The teams had met previously at Norwalk on September 24 when Madison was ranked number one in the state. The Lady Truckers won 25-14, 25-23, 28-26 but they never passed the Rams in the rankings (Wyoming, however, did). The final two sets foreshadowed what was to transpire on Saturday. Game one was a pitched battle with no team able to establish momentum. Starting at 9-all (when this reporter arrived from Perrysburg where Toledo St. Ursula fended off Toledo Central Catholic), the teams fought through ten ties and six lead changes. The longest run was three. Madison went up 10-9 on an ace by freshman defensive specialist/outside/setter Katie Wagner. Norwalk moved in front 13-11 and 15-12 paced by three kills from freshman outside Sydney Obringer. Madison regained the lead at 20-18 on sky spikes by senior Dakia Sellers, an extremely athletic middle hitter whose 33-inch vertical makes you forget she’s 5’6”. They advanced to 22-20 thanks to a great dig by libero Chase Carper (she’s also a freshman). That dig averted a tie at 21, which was fortunate because Norwalk scored next and retied at 22 when freshman middle hitter Geena Freriks blocked killed and Obringer spiked a kill. The Rams moved out to 24-22 on a cross-court blast from senior middle/outside/defender Emilee Muzechik, but Freriks kept Norwalk alive, and after a Rams’ hit went long, junior middle Kelli Weininger put Norwalk atop with a slam in the middle. Rams middle/outside/defensive specialist Ashley Galbraith and junior middle/outside Lauren Helbig teamed up for a block and the score advanced to 27-all. Senior middle Kaitlyn Eilenfeld blocked Madison back into the lead and Sellers ended it with a tip from middle to the left line. Game two began a bit sloppily for Madison, as Norwalk took advantage of three errors and an ace by sophomore libero Mikailey Rogers for a 4-0 lead. Sellars got the Rams on the board with a slam in the middle and senior setter Mackenzie Lauber scored with a dump. Following a service error, Wagner dove for a block tip to help extend a very long volley and when Norwalk hit long, the Rams butted ahead 7-5 on an ace by Carper, and a kill and block by Eilenfeld sandwiched around another dump from Lauber. Muzechuk and Galbraith (the two four-year starters have played left side, right side and middle during their careers) extended the lead to 9-6. Norwalk retied at 13 on kills by Obringer and freshman outside/defensive specialist Alicia Lortcher, but Sellers powered a slam from middle to the left line and Eilenfeld terminated to back left to fuel a three-pointer. With the score 17-15, Lauber demonstrated her versatility. When a teammate’s serve drifted too close to the net, she simply demolished it into Norwalk’s empty back left corner. The Rams upped the lead to 20-15 and advanced to 23-19. But Weininger had other ideas, and she blocked spiked the lead down to a point. Sellers responded with a soft hit over blockers into a hole in the middle, but Weininger hammered a blast past Sellers and junior right side/defender Oakley Shane tied it with a slam off the block (after sophomore setter Abby Moffit and junior defensive specialist Sam Obringer averted game point with diving digs). Madison compounded their early errors with a long hit, and when the Rams over passed a serve from Moffit, Lortcher knotted the match at a game apiece. The Rams scored first in set three with Helbig drilling a cross-court spike off a Lauber backset. Norwalk, however kept their momentum from game two, as Weininger tied with another kill and Moffit added two aces. Madison outlasted the Truckers on two long and intense volleys and moved back in front 6-5 on an ace by Eilenfeld. But when Sydney Obringer scored with a slam right at a defender, the Truckers took off. Moffit slammed two kills and Obringer and Freriks alternated scoring to pace Norwalk to a 13-6 lead. Madison would get no closer than 18-15, and Obringer led a romp from there to the finish with a block and three more kills. Between games Coach Lauber took her seniors aside and told them “If you’re going to win this ball game you’ve got to do it now. Don’t hold anything back”. She later explained “They do start out a little bit slow, but I wasn’t ready to hit the panic button yet”. Game four, however, began like a rerun of game two. Rogers nailed an ace and the Truckers rolled out 5-0 on two Ram missteps, a scoring dig by Rogers and a slam by Lortcher. Sellers again broke the ice with a tip and after an ace from Wagner she ended a frenzied volley, kept alive by a Muzechuk pancake, with another tip. With Norwalk atop 7-4, Eilenfeld terminated in the middle and served up six points including an ace. Wagner scored one of those, digging a slam in back court across the net into an empty space in back left. Norwalk retied at 14 with a four-point run and, as in game two (which Norwalk tied at 13), the Rams answered with three straight. In a minor variation of script, the Truckers promptly retied, but Madison stayed a step ahead and led 22-20 thanks to three kills from Galbraith. Obringer, however, sent a demolition down the right that was dug into the crowd and, after Shane pancaked a save, she blocked Galbraith to tie it at 22. Helbig came up big on the next volley, punching a ball that was too near the net to slam into a hole. Lauber temporarily averted another tie with a great save, but Obringer responded with a blast that was blocked out. Madison would have gone up 24-23 on the next volley had Obringer not gotten to second touch headed for la-la land. Instead, she drove it back into play and over the net, and when Madison’s next hit sailed out Norwalk, whose last lead was 7-6, was now on a 24-23 verge of a regional jaunt. Sellers, however, ended those trip plans with a quick set slam to back middle and Norwalk obliged with a long hit. Obringer retied with a slam down the left, ending a frenzied exchange, but Sellers answered with another slam in the middle after more intense volleying, and when a Norwalk hit touched the pole the match was even. Weininger scored the first two kills of the tiebreaker with terminations, but Norwalk yielded two points in between on a net serve and hit into the net. Those miscues would haunt the Truckers. Sellers blasted over the block to put the Rams atop 3-2, but Freriks answered with a slam that was dug into the crowd, and she spiked another kill after multiple saves by both sides. Sydney Obringer followed with a kill and Lortcher an with ace for a 6-3 lead. Scoring went back and forth as Madison closed to 7-6, and Norwalk upped the ante to 10-7. The Truckers led 12-9 following a Madison net serve. With time of the essence, Eilenfeld drilled a slam right at someone, and after a kill by Galbraith, she tied it with a block. But a serve sailed long, and when Obringer followed with a slam down the line that Madison players and fans thought nicked the antenna, Norwalk was at match point again. Both teams fought valiantly and desperately for the next point, and Galbraith finally got a slam off a block to go down. Norwalk had difficulty receiving Eilenfeld’s first serve and their ensuing hit went wide. The Truckers never got to Eilenfeld’s next serve - it hit the top of the net and dropped over into a hole, putting Madison at their first match point. And when a Trucker hit landed left of the left line, what was surely one of the best high school volleyball matches played in Ohio this year was over. The Rams had done just as Coach Lauber instructed. They’d held nothing back. ********************************************************************* Madison Stats: Madison: Kills: Galbraith 22, Sellers 19; Assists Lauber 53 (school record); Digs: Muzechuk 25, Carper 15; Blocks: Sellers 4 solo; Aces: Eilenfeld 3; Service Points: Eilenfeld 13
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