HOLMES TOWNSHIP — Wynford senior Reese McGuire is one of the most humble and unassuming ladies you would ever want to meet.
And, on the night of one of her biggest accomplishments in volleyball, the outside hitter and phenomenal back row player was more worried about her team.
McGuire earned her 1,000th dig in the fourth game of the Royals’ match with Bucyrus, but all she was concerned with was helping her team win.
“Honestly, 1,000 digs to me, it’s not really a personal accomplishment,” McGuire said. “It just shows me that I’ve really put in the hard work to help my team get better.
“I’ve never really been more like a selfish type and, tonight, I just really want to win,” she added. “So, I think it really helped our team.”
Her performance helped the Royals. Wynford took control of the match late and came away with a 25-11, 20-25, 25-23, 25-12 win over the Redmen Thursday night.
With the win, Wynford improved to 4-6 in the Northern 10 Athletic Conference, 6-8 overall, while Bucyrus fell to 0-10 in the league, 6-10 overall.
Wynford coach Clara Adelsperger felt that the honor came from hard work from her player.
“It’s pretty exciting,” Adelsperger said. “I got to coach her these last four years and it’s exciting to be a part of all of them. She played lights out. After the second set, I don’t think a ball hit the floor that she didn’t go after and get a good touch on.”
McGuire said that she has had a lot of fun helping a young Wynford team get better.
“I’ve been on pretty successful teams the last few years and this year is kind of our rebuilding year,” McGuire said. “So, I really enjoy helping the team. This one tonight meant a lot to us.”
Bucyrus coach Amber Christy was happy with the way her team played, despite her team was missing two starters.
“We’re down two starting players in our rotation,” Christy said. “The girls came in here and played with everything they had. And I can’t be disappointed in that.
“I had girls playing back row that has never played back row, I’ve had two jayvee players on the court,” she added. “They’re not familiar with playing this fast. So, for this speed of the game and, with them playing their butts off, I’m very happy.”
Even with the lack of starters, the Redmen hung with the Royals for three games before Wynford finally wore them down in the fourth game.
The Royals came out strong in the first game, scoring nine of the first 10 points. After Bucyrus cut the lead to 9-5 on Addy Ricker points, the Royals scored eight of the next 12 points to take command of the game. Grace Stucky and Emma Steiger each got kills in the run.
After the Redmen trimmed the lead to nine, Wynford scored five straight points on the serve of Clareese Prenger to close out the game.
The second game was all Bucyrus, as junior Emma Tyrrell added six kills in the game.
The Redmen led the game 9-2 early before Wynford trimmed the margin to 9-7 on Steiger serves.
From there, the Redmen scored four straight points on Lilly Neumann serves before holding on for a big 25-20 win.
Bucyrus led a majority of the third game, grabbing a 12-8 lead midway through the game, before getting two Tyrrell kills to take a 16-13 lead.
Bucyrus led 23-21 on a Layla Ellis serve before Wynford scored the final four points of the game. Katelyn Wagner got two kills in the run.
Wynford dominated the fourth game, scoring 15 of the first 18 points, and never were headed after that.
“Emma (Tyrrell) had a great night,” Christy said. “We had some great serves; we had some great swings. We made errors.”
But, despite the losses of players, Christy felt her team gave everything.
“We can’t lose any of our players,” Christy said. “I told all our kids at the beginning of the year that we have eight players, an eight-player rotation, and we can’t afford to lose any players. We lost two players this week and I think they stepped up and rose to the occasion.”
Adelsperger called the win “big” and felt that it could be a springboard to the second half of the league schedule.
“We needed a league win the second time around,” Adelsperger said. “We did beat Upper, but it wasn’t as pretty as I would like so I think this was big to, hopefully, move into the second half of the season.
“We got a lot of tough teams left to play, even our Saturday games are tough games, non-league games, but hopefully, we pick up where we left off on that fourth set and continue to play hard,” she added. “Obviously, I want the win playing hard, and going all out for everything is my biggest desire.”