TONTOGANY — For the second time in Northern Buckeye Conference play this season, the Otsego and Eastwood volleyball teams went at each other for the maximum five sets, but on Thursday there was a different outcome.
After Eastwood took down the Knights 22-25, 25-16, 22-25, 25-23, 15-4 on August 29, the Knights prevailed Tuesday, 25-20, 19-25, 18-25, 25-23, 15-12.
Junior middle blocker Samantha Lehr finished off the match scoring on a block and the celebration inside Otsego’s gymnasium began.
“It’s awesome,” said senior outside hitter Emily Genson. “We (seniors) haven’t beaten Eastwood since middle school, so it’s a really great feeling to finally be able to do that, and to do it on our home court with the crowd.
“Our energy was here tonight. Kudos to Eastwood. They are a great team. They battled with us and we knew that was going to happen coming in and we had to battle back.”
Senior setter Faith Keifer added, “It’s so big. We’re all so happy. This means so much to us. We’ ve been working for this for the whole season, and especially with them winning at their house it is so nice for us to win back here.”
Eastwood falls to 10-2 overall and 6-2 in the NBC, while Otsego improves to 8-5 and 5-3.
“It’s huge. These girls deserve this,” Otsego coach Gabby Smith said. “These girls have been working really hard to beat Eastwood.
“The first time we saw them it went to five as well and we got taken in the fifth. We knew coming into the fifth we were going to compete with them and we are going to go five again and we came out on top.”
Out of the gate in the fifth set it looked like the Eagles were going to walk away with the win, just like they did during set five in the first match-up.
Eastwood 5-foot-11 freshman Mackenna Miller scored on four straight kills while 5-11 senior Nadia Miller was serving, putting the Eagles out front 5-1.
However, the Knights never folded, gradually closing the gap until a kill by Keifer knotted the score at 10-10.
Keifer’s kill followed an ace by senior Addysen Limes and finished off a three-point rally, forcing an Eastwood timeout.
Nadia Miller scored on a kill to put the Eagles up 11-10 following the timeout, but Otsego scored five of the next six points to finish out the set and the match.
Senior middle blocker Kara Rollins and Limes both had kills in the final rally, and the Eagles gave up points when a serve when into the net and another kill shot went long.
Genson and coach Smith said it was all about staying focused down the stretch.
“We just needed to make our shots, all work together and communicate,” Genson said.
Smith added, “We knew we had to say present at the net, we had to execute on what we could, and stay as aggressive as we could at the service line.”
Genson led Otsego with 14 kills and 10 digs, Keifer had 13 kills, 32 assists, and 19 digs and senior Kora Rollins had 10 kills and three block assists.
Limes had a team-high eight aces. At the net, Lehr had five blocks, including three solo blocks, and senior Kendall St. John had a solo block and two block assists.
Otsego’s defense was led by freshman libero Molly Kramer with 20 digs and sophomore Tessa Conrad had 11 digs.
For the Eagles it was an uphill climb going in with three starters out of the lineup because of either injury or illness and coach Sarah Frank not present because of family issues.
“I definitely think our kids battled real well,” said Eastwood assistant coach Hannah Hodulik, stepping in for Frank.
“We were down three starters, including one of our top outside juniors, a junior right side, and our senior libero unfortunately got hurt on Tuesday, so hopefully she’ll be back.
“We were hopeful after throwing new people into the lineup from (junior varsity) and getting them worked in and into our rotation in like a day is really tough.”
Now, the Eagles have ground to make up if they want to win a league title, falling two games behind league leader Lake (8-3, 7-0).
The Flyers and Eagles meet for the second time next Thursday, September 28 on the Flyers’ court. Lake took the first match-up at Eastwood, 25-17, 25-18, 20-25, 19-25, 15-13 in another five-set marathon.
“Honestly, we’re going to get into that gym tomorrow at practice and we are going to get after it,” Hodulik said.
“Any lower than second in the league we are not taking and we’re gunning for first, I’m telling you right now.”
