VOLLEYBALL: Titans sweep Redskins

September 30, 2011

One minute the Wapakoneta Redskins were in the match.
The next they weren’t.
The Ottawa-Glandorf Titans rallied to overcome a sizable second-game deficit to win that game and roll to sweep the Redskins in three games in battle for Western Buckeye League volleyball supremacy Thursday at Wapakoneta High School.
After dropping the first game 25-18, the Redskins were just two points away from tying it at a game apiece with a 23-16 lead in the second.
But O-G rattled off nine unanswered points to pull off a 25-23 comeback win. The Titans stormed to a 25-14 win in the third game to sweep the stunned Redskins.
“We just didn’t show up tonight, plain and simple,” Wapak coach Keith Rambin said. “I could sit here and say, ‘Hats off to O-G.’ But in my opinion, O-G is not as good as O-G has been in years past.
“I’m convinced that if we would have won the second set, the match would have went a different way. ... We just didn’t finish.”
Miscues hurt Wapak all night. Five of the nine points in the O-G second-game rally came off of Redskins return or hitting errors.
“Our serve receive, for the first time all year, was as bad as I’ve ever seen it,” Rambin said. “That’s very uncharacteristic of us.”
Wapak stayed close through the first half of the third game, which was tied at 11-11 at one point. But the Titans outscored the Redskins 14-3 the rest of the way as Wapak could not get any offensive flow going.
“We just played very flat,” Rambin said. “We did not execute at all, anything, tonight.”
For Wapak, Morgan Quellhorst had eight kills, Nicole Brown had 20 assists and Amber Dickerson had 16 digs.
Both teams entered the night at 3-1 in the WBL and part of a three-way tie with the Celina Bulldogs for first-place in the league standing.
Now, with two losses in a very competitive WBL, Wapak’s chances for a league title are slim.
The Redskins have not won a WBL volleyball title since 1997.
“The window just got a lot more close to being shut,” Rambin said. “It’s frustrating.”