Prep volleyball: A rivalry is born

Sep. 28—OTTUMWA — There was definitely some tension in the air on Tuesday night at Evans Middle School Gymnasium.

For the second straight year, the Ottumwa High School volleyball team were dealing both with the pressure of pursuing a conference title and giving their senior teammates a winning send off at Evans Middle School Gymnasium. What developed was a long back-and-forth inaugural battle between the Bulldogs and new Iowa Alliance Conference rival Waterloo West in a match that featured 227 points played out over two-plus hours.

"It was amazing the ebbs and flows of the match," Ottumwa head volleyball coach Ruth Thomas said. "One minute we would be down, then all of a sudden we'd go on a run and take the lead. It just seemed to stay that way for both teams throughout the match."

In the end, it was Waterloo West that would find the finishing kick scoring the final four points in the fifth and decisive set against the Bulldogs to snap the 32nd tie between the teams in the match. The Trojans made the long, late-night journey back home to the Cedar Valley corridor spoiling Senior Night for OHS with a 26-28, 25-22, 23-25, 27-25, 15-11 win remaining alone atop the north division of the Iowa Alliance matching south division leader Des Moines Roosevelt with six wins in six alliance matches.

"We just had to keep working for each point," Waterloo East senior Tionn Wise said. "In that last set, we just had to find a way to come out on top. We just had to get the point to get the serve and continue working from that point."

Natalie See would finish off a 16-kill night for the Trojans by scoring the final two points at the net, hammering home the 108th overall kill in the match between the teams to set up three match points before tipping home the winner over the block attempt of the Bulldogs. Wise added 12 kills, matching teammate Faith Benhoff, while teaming up with Nyla Norman to produce seven blocks together as the Trojans finished with 11 overall blocks in the match.

"We've been playing together for years," Wise said of her partnership with Norman. "We've developed that really good connection with the block and hitting."

The back-and-forth battle between the teams would begin in the very first set as Ottumwa answered a three-point start by the Trojans, scoring the next five points setting the tone for a game that featured nine ties and eight lead changes.

"I think we all really wanted to win for our seniors. We didn't want to let them down," Ottumwa sophomore Avery Franke said. "We wanted to try hard. I was trying to do it for the seniors. We were trying to work well together, trying to listen to what other people are saying, talking and communicating."

Franke would lead a sharp service night for the Bulldogs, which would ultimately help Ottumwa push through in a 54-point opening game. Ottumwa record eight of their 14 ace serves during the set with four being served up by Franke while Vada Monaghan finally closed out the tight opener with an ace of her own following a tiebreaking block put up by Violet Hougland and Makayla Brown.

"I feel like, at certain times, it just flew by so fast," said Ella Allar, one of three OHS senior volleyball players honored on Tuesday. "The end of the set just seemed to sneak up on us at times. There were also times where our confidence got a little low. That's when the game felt like it drug on. When we had those rallying moments and started scoring points, it just went by so fast. That's how we won our sets."

East was able to answer back in the second game as See and Norman teamed up for a block after each Trojan senior tipped home a point during an 8-2 run that put Ottumwa behind 17-13. Three kills late in the set by Miya Fuller were not quite enough to prevent East from leveling the match with a 25-22 win, but it did get the Ottumwa sophomore going on a 20-kill night that included seven winners in the third set including the clincher on the fourth set point attempt, giving the Bulldogs the joy of a 2-1 lead in the match with a 2-1 win but also a brief scare after Fuller slightly limped following her landing.

"My calf started cramping up, and I was underneath the net so I was trying to hop away without doing any more damage," Fuller said. "Everyone started asking me if they needed to carry me off the court, but I was fine."

Ottumwa put themselves in position to win the match in four games, rallying from a five-point deficit to take a 23-21 lead on Monaghan's third ace serve and one of 11 kills hammered home by Allar. Hougland drilled a winner at the net down the line to give Ottumwa a match point at 24-23 before a serve into the net, followed by a kill and block with Norman by Wise won the game for the Trojans and forced a fifth set.

"We've been working on that block a lot lately in practice," Norman said. "It really came through when we needed it to. It was really nerve-racking, but the competition was good going back and forth."

The final game continued the theme of the night as East scored the first four points, putting Ottumwa in deep trouble, before the Bulldogs responded by scoring seven straight points. East (13-10, 6-0 IAC) responded again out of a timeout with five straight points before a block and ace by Allar tied the final game at 9-9.

"I don't even remember how we responded each time. It just went by so fast," Allar said. "There were so many different chances in the direction of the momentum and the score. It was a lot to handle all at once."

Ultimately, a block and kill by Fuller would not be enough to rescue Ottumwa in the final set of the match. The Bulldogs continued to honor Allar, Raylynn Kendrick and Brianna Brown after the match in the media center at Evans Middle School.

"There's a calming effect your upperclassmen have when you have a group of underclassmen that are so pivotal to our program," Thomas said in her post match address during the Senior Night reception. "You have to start so young with kids these days to be competitive in volleyball. It really has put our program in a great position. It wouldn't happen without the leadership of our seniors."

Ottumwa (9-10, 5-1 IAC) heads to the round-robin Newton Cardinal Classic this weekend facing Davis County, Newton, Lynnville-Sully and third-ranked (2A) Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont. The Bulldogs will open facing Davis County for the third time this season on Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m.

— Scott Jackson can be reached at sjackson@ottumwacourier.com. Follow him on Twitter@CourierScott.