Volleyball: Ottawa wins the battle of cold servers vs. Sandwich

OTTAWA – Ottawa volleyball coach Jenn Crum doesn’t like aces very much, but it’s highly doubtful that even on a night when her Pirates and Sandwich combined for a whopping 22 service errors, she’ll drop senior Brea Konwinski and sophomore Reese Burgwald into her doghouse.

Her team needed every point they could muster to escape their Interstate Eight Conference match against the Indians with an 18-25, 25-21, 25-19 victory Wednesday night at Ottawa’s Kingman Gym.

Konwinski served up 13 points, five on aces, and Burgwald added nine points, four on ace serves, to help the initially error-prone Pirates (6-4, 1-0) settle down and rally from a first-set loss to the three-set win in the league opener for both clubs.

Solid servers were rare in this one, as Ottawa committed 12 service errors – five in the opening set – and Sandwich 10, the miscues keeping both teams from grasping the momentum throughout.

“The girls have some tough serves, but the problem with that is it’s either over or it’s not. I’d rather have consistency, so I try to get them to just serve over and in so that we’re not giving points away.”

—  Ottawa coach Jenn Crum

“I cringe on aces, I’m not gonna lie,” Crum said with a smile. “My philosophy is not to ace a serve, so when they do that, it gets under my skin. The girls have some tough serves, but the problem with that is it’s either over or it’s not. I’d rather have consistency, so I try to get them to just serve over and in, so that we’re not giving points away. That was one of our speeches after the first set and serve receive was the other one. Once those things improved, we saw a big difference in our play and we [were] getting our offense going a little bit.

“In a match like this, you have to want the win at some point; and to do that, you have to play better volleyball. Getting the girls into a flow of our offense and limiting our errors in the second and third sets were the difference tonight.”

The longest service run of the night came in the first game when an OHS service error broke an 11-11 tie and the Indians’ Kaylin Herren reeled off the next eight points in a row, four of those aces, to open up a 20-11 lead. One of 12 kills by SHS’ 6-3 senior middle Audrey Rome accounted for the final point.

But the teams reached a new low in Set 2 when five of six points were scored on serving errors, leaving Ottawa with a 14-10 advantage they held for the remainder of the set.

The deciding game looking like it would be the same, as the scoring started with an ace and a service error by the Pirates. However, a Sandwich serving miscue for sideout sent Konwinski to the line for six consecutive points and an 8-3 home lead. Later, four points by Burgwald widened the gap to 13-4.

The Indians climbed back to within 17-14 on five straight points by Breanna Sexton. But predictably, a service error ended the run and OHS, missing four players, including top hitter missing Ryleigh Stevenson, held on for the win.

Chey Joachim collected five kills and Allie Snyder four for the Pirates. Burgwald had nine digs and Grace Landers seven digs and 14 assists.

For Sandwich, Alexis Sexton finished with nine points, eight digs and 21 assists. Alyssa Broce added nine points while Claire Allen hammered in six kills and three blocks, Alana Stahl five kills and Rome four digs. Maddie Hill led with 10 digs.

“We missed, I think, 12 serves, and that’s unheard of for my team. I’m really surprised,” Sandwich coach Selynda Kern said. “That really makes a difference in a game, so we will definitely be working on that tomorrow. The girls did a really good job when we were down, they didn’t give up and that’s great to see, but we have so many passes that didn’t make it to our setter like they should be. Our passing was off and our serving was off tonight and it made a world of a difference. We’re actually a pretty good passing team, and though Ottawa served very well, we just had a hard time receiving it.”