The Warsaw Tigers didn't schedule a pushover for its first home volleyball match of the season.
Racking up four wins at Saturday's Lafayette Jefferson Invitational, the Tigers took their strength of schedule up a notch Monday, hosting the Class 3A, third-ranked Mishawaka Marian Knights.Warsaw (4-1) was able to stick with Marian (2-1) for the most part, but in the end, just didn't have enough, losing 25-19, 25-23, 25-20.
"What we saw from Marian was intensity from the first point to the last point," second-year Warsaw coach Mike Howard said. "(Marian) didn't ever waiver. They just come at you and come at you."
"They just always seemed to be in the right spot," he added. "We just didn't match their consistency. We had moments of greatness, but then gave up silly plays."
In what seemed like a turning point moment, the Tigers held a 21-17 lead in the second game, but allowed Marian to yank the momentum back with an 8-2 run. The run left the Tigers awestruck and with a 25-23 loss, falling behind 2-0 in the match.
"It's a game of momentum and runs," Howard said. "We made those on (Marian). It's just when we made them, we were playing catch-up. We would catch up, then they would move ahead. We need to reverse that."
The Knights actually held a 14-10 in that second game, but a 7-0 run reversed things to Warsaw's advantage at 17-14. However, Marian coach Dan Anderson never panicked, letting his girls work things out instead of calling a timeout.
"Our serving was conservative today," Anderson said. "I wanted it to be tougher, but when you get down like that, you can't make mistakes. We got back into it with consistent serving."
In the final game, Warsaw was able to tie the score on four occasions, but never got the lead in the 25-20 loss.
"We kind of let the second game get away from us," Howard said. "We played them tight, and made some mistakes in the first game, and it just felt like we lost some energy in the third game. We don't necessarily mind not winning the match, but we don't like it when we don't play our best."
Warsaw did play their best at times, but just not long enough.
"We hung with them and they hung with us," Anderson said. "(Warsaw) is a very evenly matched squad, so it's fun to play them."
In a match between evenly-matched players, it was Marian junior Meredith Farkas who stood out, posting 15 kills, 18 digs and three blocks.
Marian senior Katie Mischler was also impressive with 11 kills and 24 assists, while junior Mollie Pajakowski finished with 14 assists, 15 digs and two kills.
In the loss, Warsaw junior Madison Long had 31 assists and 14 digs, while junior Natalie Decker and senior Sarah Shilling recorded 10 and eight kills, respectively.
Following a match at Northfield tonight, the Tigers will open their Northern Lakes Conference schedule with a home match against the third-ranked team in Class 4A, the Elkhart Memorial Crimson Chargers, Thursday.
"(Marian is) a good barometer for us, knowing we play Memorial Thursday," Howard said. "We know we can compete. We just have to clean up some things in our game before we get to that."
Among those things to clean up are defensive effort.
"We've got to give a little more effort on defense so we can touch a few more balls," Howard said. "That's what it's going to be for us all season long."
Howard knows his team can compete with Memorial, and following Monday's match, Anderson is also a believer.
Having already played Memorial, suffering a five-game loss last week, Anderson knows what it will take to pull off a victory.
"(Warsaw) is bigger than they've been in the past," the Marian coach said. "They have a big team. If they start connecting with their quick offense, the way they can, they're going to be a nice team."
"We've played Memorial already, and I told (the Warsaw coaches) they have a chance to do some damage against them," he added.
MISHAWAKA MARIAN DEF. WARSAW
25-19, 25-23, 25-20
Kills - Meredith Farkas (M) 15, Katie Mischler (M) 11, Natalie Decker (W) 10, Sarah Shilling (W) 8; Aces - Megan McMahon (M) 4, Kaitlin Reichard (W) 3; Assists - Madison Long (W) 31, Mischler (M) 24, Molly Pajakowski (M) 14; Digs - Farkas (M) 18, Pajakowski 15, Long (W) 14, Corinne Coon (W) 11; Blocks - Farkas (M) 3, Coon (W) 3; Records - Marian 2-1, Warsaw 4-1
