Two times the Fort Wayne Snider volleyball team, ranked No. 16, got out of the gate quickly against Warsaw. And two times Warsaw, ranked No. 14, slammed it shut on Snider.

The Tigers improved to 7-2 with a 15-12, 15-6 win over Snider Tuesday evening in a match that finished up in an hour. Not that it was that easy, mind you.

Warsaw fell behind 5-0 in the second game. Tiger head coach Jamie Byron called a timeout. After the timeout, Snider scored the first point to make it 6-0. The Tigers then outscored the Panthers 15-0 the rest of the way.

While Byron may have been a little concerned early, she wasn't worried about losing the game. Warsaw had prepared for an occasion just like this - an early deficit - in practice, so Byron knew her team was prepared.

"I just reminded them that's the way we started off the first game with them," Byron said. Snider gained a more modest 3-0 lead in the first game. "We tied it up, and then we started making them make mistakes. We've been practicing in practice a lot on stopping the momentum from the other side, when we're down 5-0, that type of drill."

But the Tigers needed to carry through with Byron's plan out on the court in a match, and they did so.

A kill by Alyssa Raphael started the Warsaw scoring, making it 6-1. Sheila Whitaker then served two straight aces to make it 6-3.

Byron talked about the adjustments made during the timeout.

"(We had) a lot of tough serves," Byron said. "We've been working on that from day one. We've missed tons, yet we've had a lot of aces. As long as the aces even out the missed serves, I'm very happy.

"With that, our defense picked it up. We had our right back defense too far back on the line. I told them to move up a couple of steps. That way if there was an offspeed hit, they could reach in and get those ones that had been dropping in the middle.

"They did a great job of doing that."

And then Snider made the mistakes Byron was talking about. A shot out of bounds here, a shot out of bounds there and a net violation. Voila. Warsaw claimed the 7-6 lead.

Melissa Bolles served an ace followed by a Sarah Calhoun kill, and the Tigers were on their way with a 9-6 lead. Calhoun, who had a strong game at the net, delivered two more kills to help bump the Tiger lead to 12-6. Her kill that put Warsaw up 11-6 was a hard shot, and then she followed that with an offspeed shot that left Snider flatfooted.

The second game ended on - what else - a Calhoun kill, sealing Warsaw's 15-6 win.

Practice makes perfect, Byron said. What she stressed in practice was successfully carried through against Snider.

"We've been working on our tip selection as well," Byron said. "When we had done it before, we would tip right behind the block. That's not a good spot. The setter's coming from the back row, and she's right there to pick it up.

"In practice we worked on tipping deep and tipping right along the net in the corners. We really had a tipping practice not too long ago. We practiced those shots, and it really paid off tonight."

Calhoun and Lisa Estep led Warsaw with five kills each. Estep led with nine digs, while Calhoun had five and Whitaker four. Bolles had 39 set attempts and 14 assists.

The win is Warsaw's third straight, and since it came against No. 16 Snider, the Tigers could move up in the polls. The girls on her team probably like the idea of the ranking. Byron tries not to get caught up in it.

"The rankings are nice, nice for our own egos, I guess," she said. "But to me, it means absolutely nothing. To me, it means more that we were down 5-0 and came back to beat them 15-6. They scored only one more point the rest of the match. That's what stands out in my mind, and that's what I'm proudest of at this moment."

Snider dropped to 8-5 with the loss.

Snider won the junior varsity match 2-15, 15-11, 15-12. Karla Bailey turned in Warsaw's highlight - she had 10 straight aces in Warsaw's win in the first game. Also, Liz Owens had five kills for Warsaw.

The junior varsity Tigers, 3-1, host Northridge on Thursday.

Warsaw, 7-2, tries to extend its Northern Lakes Conference winning streak Thursday. The Tigers host a 6 p.m. match with Northridge. [[In-content Ad]]