Lady Tiger spikers top No. 6 Penn in regular-season finale
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Anthony Gadson-agadson@timesuniononline.com
The Warsaw volleyball team capped its regular season off with a signature win Monday in the Tiger Den. After celebrating senior night, the Warsaw Lady Tigers (26-5) handed two-time defending Class 4A state champion Penn (23-5) a four-game loss, 25-20, 25-13, 27-29, 25-20. Their latest win is just another big one for the Lady Tigers this season. On Aug. 20, Warsaw got its first win in over a decade at Class 3A No. 5 Mishawaka Marian, then turned around and snapped Elkhart Memorial’s 76-match Northern Lakes Conference win streak in Elkhart three days later. Each of those matches went five games, and each time Warsaw trailed 2-1, meaning the Lady Tigers know how to battle. “It just builds confidence,” Warsaw coach Mike Howard said. “To get signature wins when you haven’t had them before, then when you talk to your kids and tell them you believe and they have this ability and they can come through, it’s just huge.” And his girls have proved they have ability. “For this group of kids, and the seniors especially, to beat Mishawaka Marian for the first time, to beat Elkhart Memorial for the first time and to beat Penn for the first time is a huge year,” Howard said. “Regardless how the year ends, there’s been tremendous strides for the program. I couldn’t be more excited and proud of the things these girls have done.” Coming into the match ranked sixth in Class 4A, Penn coach Sarah Hendricks knew she was in for a battle based on past matches with Warsaw. “Warsaw always gives us a good game,” she said. “They’re always a scrappy team. Year after year, with every team I see, they always have the most heart. They come out and just play like it’s the most important game they have. We know everywhere we go, we have a target on our back. That aside, they outplayed us tonight.” As if the win wasn’t surprising enough, the way the Lady Tigers made it look easy was even more so. After taking the opening game 25-20, Warsaw senior Sam Jensen served six-straight points in the second, leading the Lady Tigers to an 18-8 lead en route to the 25-13 game win. In the third game, it appeared Penn had knocked off the rust, holding a 21-13 advantage. However, even that game became difficult as Warsaw fought back to tie it at 24-24, but eventually succumbed 29-27. Despite losing the game, Warsaw was still feeling confidence based on its comeback. “I said in our huddle, ‘If nothing else, I want to get some momentum back,’” Howard said. “Once you can steal the momentum back you don’t know how far that can take you, and it almost took us to the third game. Maybe it should have. We kind of let that third game slip away.” While Warsaw was stealing back the momentum, Hendricks had her hopes for a turnaround dashed. “We just made mental mistakes,” she said. “We didn’t put the ball away when we had the opportunity. We didn’t take the opportunities we had. We missed serves at crucial spots. We just mentally broke down and didn’t take care of the ball when we needed to take care of the ball. When you do that, teams like (Warsaw) are going to take it and roll with it.” And Warsaw did roll in the fourth, winning 25-20, only trailing at 2-1 in the game. “We served the ball,” Howard said about the most important component in the win. “We didn’t pass as great as we have, we didn’t handle the ball as well as we could have, but we served the ball well and we took them out of system. That minimized their big swingers. We made them predictable, and if you can make a team predictable, you can have much more success.” Senior Jamie Lacheta led the Lady Tigers with 16 kills and six aces, while senior Alex Sanchez had a team-high 16 digs to go with junior Katie Voelz’s four blocks. But it was senior Chloe Hubner’s 38 assists, 10 digs and two aces that caught Howard’s attention. “Everybody played ball,” he said. “Chloe was great tonight. She made great decisions. Really stellar defense. I was really pleased with her defense tonight. She defended the floor as well as she has all year.” With the regular season over, the Lady Tigers are now looking forward to next week’s Goshen Sectional. Warsaw begins sectional play Oct. 18 against Concord and will likely face five-time defending sectional champion Memorial Saturday. With Memorial struggling this season, carrying a 16-16 record, Warsaw looks primed for its first sectional title since 2004. “The postseason is always exciting,” Howard said. “Regardless if you’re playing well, not playing well. If you’re playing well, maybe there’s a little more apprehension, because you want to keep it going.” And with a sectional championship, the Lady Tigers would most likely face Penn again at the Huntington North Regional Oct. 23. But before that, Hendricks wants to concentrate on winning the South Bend Washington Sectional for the fourth-straight year. “I try not to look ahead,” she said. “I don’t take our sectional for granted. With our team, if we show up, we can be great. If we don’t, you see what happened tonight. We have the ability to be great. We have times when we put it all together, and those are the most fun times to coach, because we can make adjustments and look at the other side of the net to make those adjustments. When the team that came out tonight comes out, it’s hard to even coach. It’s just a lack of focus and a lack of technique that we practice every day. It’s quite frustrating.”
