BUCYRUS — The Wynford volleyball team suffered a tough five-game loss to Carey Thursday night.
Coach Clara Adelsperger said that her team used that loss as motivation Tuesday night at Bucyrus.
“I made it very clear we were not going to underestimate (Bucyrus),” Adelsperger said. “We were ready to go when we walked into the gym tonight.”
The motivation worked. The Royals controlled the net for two games and overcame a strong Bucyrus move in the third game to come away with a 25-14, 25-9, 27-25 win.
The Royals improved to 2-1 in the Northern 10 Athletic Conference, 3-3 overall, while the Redmen fell to 0-3 in the conference, 4-3 overall.
Wynford used the strong play of seniors Reece McGuire and Emma Steiger to control the tempo of the first two games and never let the Redmen in the contest.
“We put in more effort there than we have, I think, all season,” Adelsperger said. “We just kinda played all out and didn’t let anything touch the floor. We stayed aggressive and made them wonder where we were going to hit.”
Bucyrus entered the game without one of its top players, Madalyn Kimmel, who sprained her ankle with five minutes left in practice Monday. She came to the game in crutches. Bucyrus coach Amber Christy said she will miss a couple of matches.
“Maddie is six rotation stellar player,” Christy said. “I had them come into my room today and told them what our lineup was going to be.
“When you go down, and then we had to pull jayvee players and the jayvees played with six players tonight and, if we went five games, I would have had the players to play.”
Christy also felt that her team struggled with intensity.
“Also, there were some players who decided that tonight was not a night to play volleyball,” Christy said. “It makes it a little tougher.”
Led by McGuire and Steiger, the Royals never trailed in the first two games.
Leading 6-2 in the first game, the Royals scored four of the next five points, then added a 10-8 run in the middle of the game to take a 20-11 lead, the last point coming on a Steiger kill.
Bucyrus got a Kelcie Clayton ace and a kill from Emma Tyrrell late in the game, but a pair of Steiger points ended the game.
Wynford jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second game on McGuire points before Bucyrus got a Clayton kill to cut the lead to 3-2.
From that point, Wynford scored 10 of the next 13 points to take a 13-5 lead.
After Bucyrus got a block from Lillian Neumann to trim the lead to 13-7, Wynford went to an 11-1 run to take control of the game.
“Reece McGuire was all over the place and Clareese (Prenger) and Zoe (Whitmeyer) had some good digs as setters and then we got some attacks off those and that was great,” Adelsperger said.
Bucyrus got its first lead of the game at 1-0 on a Clayton point, but Wynford slowly built a 12-5 lead on a Steiger point.
Wynford led 23-16 late in the third game before the Redmen came storming back.
The Redmen got a kill from Macey Williams and added five straight Williams points to cut the lead to 24-23.
From there, McGuire scored on a kill, Maddy Lutz added a kill and Katelyn Wagner scored on a kill to end it.
“We had some communication problems for about four points in that (third) game,” Adelsperger said. “We did throw in a couple of girls who usually don’t play together and that kind of hurt us. But there were some balls off the block that we weren’t covering.”
“I’m really happy with how they finished in the third,” Christy said. “I know that Wynford put in their subs. But I was proud of the way the girls kept fighting back. They have a lot of work to do.”
Christy felt that, while her team is still improving, it needs to especially improve its passing.
“We need to call the balls, and that was a big problem of ours tonight,” Christy said. “We weren’t floating on the court like we normally do, and Kimmel is a big force for that float.
“When you are starting to have regrowth, you have a certain lineup, you just work so hard on that specific lineup. When you really don’t have the pieces to go when something happens, like an injury, it makes it very, very tough.”