Lady Trojans prep for tournament play with four match week ahead
ARCANUM – The undefeated and top ten OHSAA state ranked New Bremen Lady Cardinals traveled to Arcanum and defeated a stubborn Lady Trojans volleyball team 3-0 in non-conference action.
“New Bremen is a tough team,” said Arcanum coach, Macey O’Dell. “We have to want to play with them. We proved it in the third set – we could and we’re a strong team as well but we just can’t come out slow.”
New Bremen jumped out to 6-0 and 9-1 first set advantages before the Lady Trojans regrouped to make to score 11-points the rest of the opening period and fall 25-11 to the visitors.
“We were struggling the first set to even get a pass up for our hitters to swing but I think they were a little intimidated at first and played timid,” O’Dell stated, “but then we started swinging and it worked good.”
Set No. 2 had Arcanum up 4-2 and 6-5 before the Lady Cardinals hit their stride using an 11-0 run to lead 16-6 bringing a timeout from the Lady Trojans bench. Bremen closed out the set with a 9-5 run to win 25-11 and go up 2-0.
The third set saw the Lady Trojans confidence building as the teams played to 2-2, 3-3 and 4-4 and Arcanum taking a 6-4 advantage. The teams again played to 8-8, 10-10, 11-11, 12-12 and 13-13 ties before the Lady Trojans once again grabbed a 2-point advantage; 15-13 only to have the Lady Cardinals even the score at 15-15.
New Bremen took advantage of 5-unanswered points to lead 20-15 with the teams matching points down the stretch giving the visitors a 25-20 third set win and the match to stay undefeated on the 2021 season.
“I told my team – we got a great prep for tournament,” said Coach O’Dell. “Next week every game we have Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday – they’re all going to be tough. We’re going to go into the tournament strong.”
