Lady Tigers knock off Senators for 2nd win

CROTHERSVILLE — The Crothersville volleyball team defeated West Washington 25-21, 25-18 in the first two games of Monday night’s match and the Tigers had ideas of a sweep.

The Senators had other ideas and won the third game 29-27 and battled to a 20-20 tie in the fourth game before the Tigers finished strong with a 25-21 win.

“When you’re playing a team like West Washington that is real scrappy and they dig balls you don’t expect them to dig and things like that, you’re going to lose your share of points to a team that can play good defense like that,” Tigers coach Aaron Knieriem said. “Our defense lacked a little bit tonight, but we keep improving game after game.”

The fourth game was tied at 20 before the Senators made an attacking error, and Whitney Wienhorst served an ace to put the Tigers up 23-20. After a West Washington point, Chandler Nehrt had an attack kill and the Senators had a passing error for the final two points of the match.

“Everybody played a good match, but Chandler came into it tonight the way I watched her play in summer ball,” Knieriem said. “She had a lot of kills (19) and played good defense. She was a difference maker.”

Nehrt was 37-40-19 in attacks, while the team was 99-121-42.

The first game was tied several times, the last at 18-18, before the Tigers finished strong. Karlie Schoenfelder and Ashleigh Allen had ace serves late in the set to keep the Tigers ahead.

The Tigers held a 19-18 lead in the second game when Kayla Barnett stepped to the serving line and scored the final six points. Allen had a kill on game point, one of 10 kills she had during the match.

Knieriem said he felt like his team played strong around the net.

“Karlie and Whitney always do a good job of blocking, and they are pretty intimidating at the net,” he said. “The actual person I was really pleased with in terms of attacking and defense all-around was Kayla Barnett. She got her share of kills (five), but bigger than that she played good defense. Their middle hitters were hitting the ball solid and she was digging them every time. She was a real difference maker on defense for us.”

West Washington opened up an 11-6 lead in the third game before the Tigers rallied to close the difference to 11-10. The Senators held a 17-16 lead before Schoenfelder scored a point on a tip to tie the score at 17.

A point on a tip by Wienhorst put the Tigers up 23-21 before the home team had some attacking, serving and passing errors that allowed the Senators to win the game.

The Tigers missed 14 serves, going 90-104-12, and Knieriem said he was hoping for a better effort in that area.

“That was probably the area that we need to work on the most that I saw tonight,” he said. “We missed 14 serves, and beyond that, we weren’t real aggressive. We weren’t hitting the serving zones like I’d like to see us hit them. We’ll work on that.”

Crothersville (2-1) will travel to Orleans tonight.

Box score

At Crothersville
Crothersville def. West Washington 25-21, 25-18, 27-29, 25-21
Crothersville hitting: Chandler Nehrt 37-40-19, Ashleigh Allen 32-40-10, Kayla Barnett 8-10-5, team 99-121-42; serving: Allen 21-22-2, Nehrt 17-19-2, Lauren Barnes 21-23-2, team 90-104-12; sets: Jessica Schmelzle 46; blocks: Karlie Schoenfelder 6, Whitney Wienhorst 6
Junior varsity
Crothersville def. West Washington 25-10, 24-25, 15-10
Crothersville hitting: Kaitlyn Hoevener 5-8-4, Savannah Wooten 4-4-1, Lauren Tippin 2-4-2, team 14-22-8, serving: Kelsey Hoskins 5-6-1, Samantha Spall 16-16-7, Tippin 9-12-7, Wooten 10-14-7, team 48-63-23, sets: Hoskins 30-32